


Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today

by comebacknow



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Foul Language, Gift Exchange, Gratuitous Banter, Holidays in the safe haven, Multi, Newt Lives, OCs - Freeform, PTSD, Safe Haven, Sexual implications, a bunch of people live, and nothing discussed in detail, holiday au, nothing graphic though, post tdc, slight PTSD, sonya POV, sonyarriet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 22:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebacknow/pseuds/comebacknow
Summary: The Safe Haven has become a bit segregated.  Vince and the others decide it's time to bring everyone together and now Sonya is thrown in the middle of a Holiday Project.  Through it, she finds new friends, new family and love.  But first, she has to find a gift...





	1. Day 41

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TMR Secret Santa!

 

_Day 41 –_

 

_I’d like to say that things are changing, but they’re not.  Not where it matters anyway.  Last night I had another nightmare.  I think it was a nightmare.  But I’m not so sure than it wasn’t just a memory disguised.  I guess I’ll never really be sure.  Whatever it was, I didn’t recognize anyone’s faces, but I must have known these people once before.  Right?  Mary used to say that you can’t conjure a face in your mind unless you’ve seen it before – whether it’s someone you met in passing, know well, an acquaintance, or whoever.  I don’t know how true it is, but I have to find truth in something.  It’s rare these days._

_I wonder if I’ll ever figure out who those people were to me._

_I wonder if I’ll ever really know who I was.  I want to.  I need to know what life was like before.  I need to know what led me here.  I want to know who I was before I became Sonya._

 

 

The salted breeze of the sea blew into Sonya’s tent as the flaps were pulled open.  She pushed the loose strands of hair from her face as she looked up and tucked the journal beneath her thigh with her free hand.

            “Writing again?” Harriet asked as the flaps closed behind her and the air settled in the tent again.

            Sonya felt her mouth curl into a small smile.  “Guilty.”

            “No reason to be guilty.”  Harriet stepped closer and took the seat next to her on the stiff pile of pallets that made up the bed.  “As long as it helps more than it hurts.”

            “It does,” Sonya assured her.  She pulled the journal back into her lap and closed it.  It wasn’t anything special.  A spare banded notebook with wrinkled, faded pages that she’d found in one of the buildings back in town.  This was, of course, before they reached the Safe Haven.  She hadn’t needed to write in it until they arrived here and settled in.  Once the new routines began, really.  Maybe it was just that she didn’t have to focus until she was settled in here.  Even that was questionable these days.

            “Hey,” Harriet gave a slight shake to Sonya’s leg.  “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

            Sonya answered with a shake of her head.

            “Neither did I.  Let’s go.  I think Fry is making a vegetable scramble.”

            “Again?” she laughed half-heartedly.

            Harriet smiled and pressed a small kiss to Sonya’s temple.  “Come on.  We can pretend it’s Jenny’s sweet bread.”  
            Sonya tossed her head back and groaned. “I miss that.”  She allowed Harriet to grab her hands and pull her up to stand.

            “Let’s go,” Harriet said, not letting go as she backed out of the tent.  “Maybe there’s something different.”

 

            The air seemed cooler that it was when they’d first arrived at the Safe Haven.  It had been cold then, but the wind seemed to pick up a bigger chill now as it came from the ocean.  Most of the others seemed to hate it.  Complaints were murmured around the camp through shudders and hunched shoulders, but Sonya found it comforting.  She knew it was largely in part because of the years she’d spent in the Spring; a strange sort of a Stockholm Syndrome.  Still, it was familiar and there were very few things that were familiar to her these days.

            She used her free hand that wasn’t nestled in Harriet’s to pull her collar up above her neck as they stepped up onto the small line forming at the food tent.  Her eyes scanned the area to find that most everyone was awake and already going about their days.

            It was the third day in their rotation, which meant that Sonya didn’t have to worry about work until sunset.  She eyed the Med Tent and could just make out Aris moving around inside.  She fought the urge to check in earlier than she was meant to.  As far as she knew, there was still no change with Colin.

            The line moved forward and she stepped up, taking the square of wood that served as a food tray.  She ran her hand across the polish that the food workers coated them with to make them safer to eat off and easier to wash.  They weren’t the painted bowls from the Spring, but they worked well enough for the vegetable scramble.

            She extended her arm forward as Frypan scooped two small piles onto her tray.  She smiled a silent thank you and moved down the line to where a girl who’d just joined their Haven a week ago was frustratingly pushing her hair back.  The girl pressed another vegetable into something that squished it to make juice drip out into the bowl of boiled water below it.

            “Carrot juice?” the girl panted out to her.

            “No, thank you,” Sonya offered a small smile and followed Harriet off of the line.

            They found seats next to a boy whose name Sonya couldn’t remember. 

            He nodded to her.  “Morning, Sonya.  Glad to see I’m not the only one who slept in.”  He laughed before he took in another mouthful of the scramble.

            Sonya smiled but busied herself with her food so she wouldn’t have to explain that _over_ sleeping was the least of her problems.

            “Oh,” Harriet said suddenly.  “It’s later than I thought.”

            Sonya looked up and followed Harriet’s gaze across the camp.  A girl with dark, short hair was sitting next to Thomas and Newt talking animatedly with her hands about something.  Sonya never really spoke to her; hadn’t had an opportunity to.  The girl was usually finished with breakfast and starting a morning run by the time Sonya and most of the others woke up.  The only ones who were up before her were the cooks and, of course, Minho.

            “If it helps, she cut her run short today,” the boy supplied, staring at his food under sharp furrowed brows.

            “Why?” Harriet asked.

            He looked up at her, and Sonya was only a little impressed at how quickly his features shifted from frustrated to bored.  “What am I? Her keeper? Go ask her.”  He stood and stormed off in heavy boots, tossing his tray into a wash-bin.

            “I will never understand why they all put up with him,” Harriet shook her head and went back to her food.

            It wasn’t until he disappeared into his tent that Sonya remembered who he was.  “He helped save Minho.”  Though her eyes stayed on the tent, she could feel Harriet’s gaze on her.  “Sometimes the good has to outweigh the bad.”  She turned to meet Harriet’s eyes now.

            Harriet reached an arm around Sonya’s waist and pulled her closer to her and, though Sonya enjoyed the cold, she’d take Harriet’s warmth over it any day. “What happens if you don’t have anything bad for the good to outweigh, hmm?”

            Sonya smiled as she leaned her head onto Harriet’s shoulder.  “You tell me.”

            She felt Harriet’s body shake with the small laugh and then a kiss was pressed to the top of her head.  Harriet’s breath was warm as she murmured into her hair, “if I ever figure out the mystery you are, I’ll let you know.”

 

            Sonya pulled the latex gloves on as her eyes scanned the nightly checklist on the counter.  The job was simple enough – similar to how it ran in the Spring.  They were kept busy, but she had yet to see anything close to what she’d had to deal with then.  She silently thanked the universe every day she didn’t have to see the horrors she’d witnessed a Shade do to her friends. 

            Admittedly, the evening hours went smoothly.  Most of the checklist was filled with tasks that passed the time: boil and sterilize equipment, wipe and sterilize surfaces, change hammocks and blankets, launder anything that needed it.  The only time it varied was when they had a patient. 

            As she expected, Colin was fast asleep when she’d arrived.  Aris and Jonah gave her a brief rundown and left to enjoy their evening off. Considering she didn’t need to fuss over Colin yet, she set about gathering the supplies to ready them for sterilization instead.

            The tent’s zipper shrieked as it was swiftly yanked open and Sonya spun in the sand toward the sound.

            “Sorry I’m late,” Newt exhaled.  “Lost track of time.”  
  
            His voice eased the tension in her chest from thinking it was another patient.  Sonya’s mouth curled into a smile as she turned back to the supplies.  “No problem.”

            She heard a small breath of laughter before he spoke.  “I guess I shouldn’t bother apologizing anymore, hm?”

            Sonya shrugged.  “I’ve come to expect the ten-minute delay by now.”

            He exhaled somewhere behind her and she heard a hammock creak.

            She set down another needle in the row. “May I ask what it was this time?”

            “You know, even if I can’t see it, I can hear the smirk in your voice.”

            Sonya laughed and set down the last needle before she turned to face him and leaned back against the counter. She met his unimpressed gaze and they began a silent battle for almost a full minute before Sonya finally rolled her eyes and looked away.  “You know,” she said as she folded her arms, “one of these days I _will_ get you to talk to me.”

            “Sure, sure,” Newt said as he pushed his legs against the sand and swung the hammock back and forth.

            Sonya’s gaze snagged on his injured leg.  She never asked how he got it, but it didn’t stop her from wondering.  She assumed it was a mishap in their Maze or perhaps in some scuffle traveling the Scorch before they all met at the Right Arm.  She knew plenty of people with lasting injuries from the Scorch.  Still, she wondered why he didn’t try to cast it or fix it if he was working in the Medical Tent anyway.  She heard him clear his throat and her eyes snapped up to meet his.

            He raised a brow.  “Have a question on your mind?”

            Sonya blinked and felt the heat rise up her neck. “No,” she shook her head. “No I… Sorry.” She dropped her gaze to the sand.

            A moment passed before he responded. “It’s okay.”

            The hammock stopped creaking.

            Sonya shifted where she stood.  “Actually, I do have a question.”

            Newt’s response was just to hold her gaze, which was typical for him.  He didn’t speak much, but that was okay.  Sonya had begun learning his silent language.

            “Why did you choose the Med Tent?”

            Newt blinked and his brows furrowed just slightly.

            “I just mean… Minho told me that you were a Second-in-Command back in your Maze.  You were more of a leader. Not… this.”

            Newt held her gaze for another minute before he looked away and seemed to consider the question.  “I was, yes,” he nodded as his eyes found some memory.  “But things changed since then.  It was different back in the Glade.  I’m not who I was there.”

            It was Sonya’s turn to look down at the floor.  She knew the feeling all too well.  “So why the Med Tent? Why not food or hunting with Thomas?” she chanced looking back at him.

            He shrugged.  “There’ve been too many people who have saved my life.  Least I could do is give back.”  
  
            Sonya felt her eyes tighten as some part of her ached for him. 

            “What about you?” he asked as he nodded up at her.  “Why’d you choose it?”

            She exhaled and tried to loosen the knot in her chest.  “It’s familiar.  I’m comfortable helping, healing, listening.”

            “You’re good at it,” he said.  “I’d like to be good at this kind of thing one day.”

            “You are good at it,” she tilted her head.  “I hear the way you speak to people.  To Minho, to Frypan.” She shifted a bit, a mischievous smile growing on her face.  “To Thomas.”

            Newt lifted his gaze and met hers.

            She made a show of shrugging innocently.

            His mouth was a line, but the warning in his eyes was light-hearted.  There was another space of unspoken conversation between the two of them.  It had become normal overtime.  Sonya started to learn that it wasn’t just her that could read Newt’s posture – at some point, he had begun to read hers as well.

            He pushed up from the hammock and walked to the counter next to her, scanning the tools with his gaze as he spoked.  “And how _are_ things with Harriet?”

            Sonya turned to the side to look at his profile. “You care?”

            He looked up at her now with brows furrowed.  “I always do.”  There was a sudden serious shift in his tone, honesty in his eyes that made her believe him. 

            They held each other’s gaze for another minute before she broke it.  “I think she’s worried about me.”

            There was a steadied pause before he answered.  “In regards to…?”

            Sonya didn’t answer. In her peripheral, she could see Newt turn back to the tools on the counter.

            He straightened one of the needles. “Still having nightmares, then?”

            “Not by choice.”

            He sighed deeply.  “They never are.”  He moved to the side and picked up the large empty basin next to the counter.  “I’ll get fresh water.  Start gathering the sheets and clothing, yeah?”

            “Sure,” she nodded and turned back to the checklist.

 

            After Sonya realized that her watch wasn’t, in fact, broken and it struck eleven she pushed herself up from her spot on the floor.  She turned and found Newt seated up on the counter with a clipboard in his hands, brows furrowed as he scratched away on it. “What’re you doing?”

            “Inventory,” he murmured, not taking his eyes from the board.

            “I just did inventory,” she gestured with her own clipboard. “And since I have the sheets, you don’t.”

            His eyes lifted to meet hers above his clipboard. “Then I’m writing Colin’s vitals.”

            Sonya dropped her arms to her sides.  “Seriously? Did you at least write the end of day notes? It’s already elev-”

            Sonya’s words were cut off at the chaos outside of their tent.  Voices yelled over each other and boots scuffled in the sand.  Sonya and Newt held each other’s confused stare for half a second longer before Sonya whipped around toward the zipper flap and Newt pushed off of the counter.  She tore the zipper open but before they could step outside, three others pushed their way into the tent.

            Sonya stumbled back at the force of someone pressing into her.  She caught her balance and looked up at the chaos in front of her.

            “GET HIM THE HELL OUTTA HERE!” Gally yelled over Vince’s shoulder. 

            “SIT DOWN.”

            “VINCE HE WAS GONNA-”

            “I SAID SIT DOWN.”

            Sonya flinched back as Vince pushed Gally down onto a stool in the corner of the tent.  It was only when Vince stepped back that Sonya was able to see the bruised and bleeding knuckles.

            “What happened?” Vince asked as he whipped around.

            She followed his gaze and flinched yet again, this time accompanied by a small gasp that she caught in her palm.

            Thomas stood just to the side of the tent’s entrance, bloodied and cut mouth in a line, bruised eyes dark and lowered. Blood was drying on shaking hands at his sides. His nostrils flared as he breathed, though his breaths came calmly.

            A blur passed Sonya and Newt was suddenly next to Thomas with a sterilized damp cloth.  He reached up to Thomas’ brow but Thomas vaguely waved a hand up to push his away – his eyes never leaving their spot in the distance.

            “Thomas,” Vince said.  “What happened?”

            Thomas’ eyes shifted a bit then but didn’t quite make it to meet any of theirs.

            Vince exhaled.  “Well someone’s gotta start speaking.” He pointed to the tent’s entrance as he went on, voice rising. “I’ve got Jorge out there about to blow his top off on two kids, I got another held in my tent until I figure out more room in a Slammer and now I’ve gotta find room to get you two in there unless someone talks right now and tells me what the damn hell is goin’ on around here.”

            The only answer that came was from Newt tossing the damp cloth aside, frustration rippling from him.

            “Hello?” Vince called out, gesturing wide to Thomas.

            “It’s nothing,” Thomas said finally.  The movement of his mouth caused blood to drip just slightly from his lip.

            “Don’t give me that bullshit.”

            “It’s those slinthead Normies,” Gally yelled in way of answer, pointing outside. “They don’t know how to shut their mouths so now I have to do it for them.”

            “You don’t have to do shit except sit there and keep quiet,” Vince turned to him.

            “Oh come on, Vince, you really think this is my fault?”

            “It might as well be by the looks of Aaron’s face right now.”

            “It’s mine,” Thomas said, voice still as even as it was before.

            Vince turned to him, but Sonya’s eyes drifted to Newt.  He barely moved his head as he lifted his eyes to Thomas, brows still furrowed.

            Thomas finally looked up to Vince then.  “Gally’s right.  They don’t think I belong here so they try to make me leave.”

            “That’s ridiculous,” Newt said finally, face morphing into a blend of anger and confusion.  “Why would you of all people not belong here?”

            Thomas blinked once slowly and when he opened his eyes, they were on Newt.  He didn’t say anything, but recognition dawned on Newt and he turned away rolling his eyes.  “Oh, no,” Newt laughed.   He took a few steps across the tent and ran a hand through his hair.

            Sonya finally found it in her to speak as she reached out to grab his arm as he walked past.  “Newt, just-”

            He yanked his arm from her grasp and turned back to Vince. “You’ve gotta do something about this.  It’s the fourth time since we’ve been here, Vince.”

            “Don’t worry about what I’m doing, you just work on getting these two cleaned up.”

            “Yeah,” Newt nodded and stepped forward, “no problem. I’ve had plenty of bloody practice!”

            “Watch your tone.”

            Sonya stepped up then and held her arms out.  “Okay, everyone breathe. We’re all strung up right now.  Newt and I will help clean up Gally and Thomas and Vince you can sort out what you need to do.”

            “I need to know what happened,” Vince repeated.

            “God, Vince, come on,” Gally groaned.

            The tent flaps tore open then, the zipper finally giving way and breaking as the girl with the short black hair stormed in, looked around the tent once, landed her gaze on Gally and shoved Vince aside as she walked up to him.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

            Gally at least had the decency to look taken aback. “Excuse me?”  
  
            “I had that guy.  I can defend myself, you know.”

            “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’d say the same for himself,” Gally nodded to where Thomas still stood on the other side of the tent, his head tilted back now looking only slightly bored.

            “Okay, that’s it,” Vince clapped his hands.  “Brenda,” he looked at the girl.  “Talk. What happened.”

            “They jumped him because he worked for WCKD. They think this is his fault.”

            Vince watched Brenda, seemingly registering what she said, perhaps working through it in his head. He turned to Thomas.  “Is that true?”

            Thomas shifted his eyes to Vince, not moving his head. He seemed to consider it for a moment before he nodded once.

            Vince ran a hand down his face as he exhaled.  “Brenda get out.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Are you hurt?”

            “No-”

            “Then get out.  Let these two patch them up.  I want everyone at the Fire Circle in ten minutes. Not one minute later or you get back to back doubles.”

            The only response was Gally rolling his eyes.

            Vince stormed out of the tent, holding the tent flap open.  “Let’s go, Brenda.”  
  
            She glared once more at Gally and took after Vince out of the tent.

            When the flaps settled back into place and silence took over the cabin again, Sonya looked around at the boys.  None of them were looking at anyone, finding more interest in the sand or the threads of the tent.  “Okay,” Sonya sighed.  “Well, my shift just got longer and we’ve only got ten minutes so let’s get through this quickly. Newt, help Thomas out? I’ll help Gally.”

           

            Fifteen minutes later, the entirety of the Safe Haven seemed to have gathered round the Fire Circle, where they usually held their meetings. There hadn’t been one in nearly two months, but everyone still seemed to remember protocol.  The crowd silenced as Vince stepped up by the fire pit. 

            “I’m sure you all know why you’ve been called here so late,” he started as he looked across the crowd.

            Sonya reached out and took Harriet’s hand. Harriet offered up a small smile before turning back to Vince.  They hadn’t had much time to talk – Harriet only made a brief comment about how she was the one to grab Vince once the fight broke out, but she hadn’t seen what happened. 

            Vince rested his hands on his hips as he scanned the crowd.  Jorge sat just behind him slightly to the left with three other adults Sonya didn’t really get to know that well. She’d known Vince for years though, so whatever he had to say she’d listen.

            “We found this Safe Haven and began to make it a home – or we’ve been trying to.  We’ve come far from the first days we got here.  We’ve got fields to grow vegetables, we’ve got tents set up for everyone, for food, for medical assistance and more.  We’ve got training, hunting, cooking.  Everything we could need to get started. And we’re still expanding.  But there’s something holding us back. Something very big.”

            Sonya could hear shifting along the crowd but no one uttered a word.

            “The fighting between you all has got to stop,” Vince continued.  “All this separation? _Mazers, Normies_ … other names I won’t repeat.”

            Sonya couldn’t help the way her eyes found Newt then.  Her chest tightened at the way his jaw twitched and just beyond him, she could see the girl – Brenda, she reminded herself – straighten her posture and look around to the others as if daring someone to look at her.  Sonya swiftly looked away.

            “It’s gotta stop. I’m sick of having to stop what I’m doing to pull you animals off each other because you can’t keep your fists off each other!”

            Sonya flinched at the way his voice raised at the end.  Her eyes flicked to one of the women who stood and stepped up to his side.  She murmured something to Vince that evidently eased him and he ran a hand down his face. 

            “Listen,” he began again in a calmer tone.  “I’ve thought it over and I think the issue is that, while we’ve been so productive and advancing and building here, we haven’t stopped to get to know each other like we should.  Jasmine,” he nodded to a girl somewhere off on the opposite side of the crowd that Sonya couldn’t see.  He waved her down. “Come here.”

            A girl with long tan legs and a high black ponytail walked up to Vince, but he was already scanning the crowd again.  “Minho,” he pointed to him.  “Come here.”

            Sonya’s eyes found him immediately as he pushed himself to stand and meandered through the others to the front.

            “Aside from your names, can you tell me anything about each other?” Vince asked the two of them.

            “Yeah,” Jasmine shrugged. “He’s a weak Mazer who couldn’t escape WCKD.”

            There was a sudden burst of noise from the left side of the crowd and Sonya found herself pressing her fists into her thighs and clenching her jaw to keep from calling out to the girl as well.  In the side of her vision she could see Newt grip the back of Thomas’ shirt as he stood and even Aris called out from the other side of Harriet.

            “Calm down, everyone stop!” Vince called out over the yelling crowd. The other adults stood up to calm the swelling crowd as the right side began firing back at the left. 

            There was a loud, sharp whistle and the noise dimmed. Vince let one more whistle out and the noise settled into silence once more.  The last thing she heard before Vince spoke was Minho’s spit hit the ground. 

            “Pleasant,” Harriet laughed.

            “Can’t blame him,” Sonya murmured back.

            Harriet’s arm wrapped around her again as Vince began to speak. 

            “This is what I mean,” he said.  “No more of this.”

            “Why don’t you ask me what I know about her?” Minho asked, pointing at Jasmine with his chin.

            Vince only responded by holding a hand up to him.  He looked back across the crowd. “From this point forward, we’re halting the work schedules.”

            At this, there was a more lighthearted rustle along the crowd.

            “Don’t get too excited.  We still need to keep this place running. Days 1 & 3 will still be in rotation. But Days 2 & 4 are going to be different work.”

            Sonya scanned the crowd again glad to see she wasn’t the only one confused.

            Vince took another breath and gestured for Minho and Jasmine to find their seats.  Once they were settled, he started up again.  “Years ago, before the world became what it is now, people around the world spent the end of each year coming together with family and friends to celebrate.  They’d gather with gifts for each other, music, food and more.  I don’t know all the details, but I think it’s time we start to bring that tradition back.  So, for the next few weeks, we’re going to turn this Safe Haven into a place of celebration of each other.”

            There was more confused murmur across the crowd, but Sonya found herself focusing in on Vince eager to hear more.  Though she didn’t know much about whatever celebration he’d been referencing, she loved the idea of getting to relax off from work and hear music.

            “So tomorrow, everyone is going to have off and we’re going to gather here and I’m going to split us all into groups. No choosing your own teams. The five of us here,” he gestured to the other adults, “will each be taking a group of you under our wing to start getting this place to feel more home-y. I don’t wanna hear any complaints. And if I hear the words _Normie_ or _Mazer_ one more time, it’s the Slammer for forty-eight hours – not twenty-four. Forty-eight. You got me?”  He looked around at the crowd before he repeated louder: “I asked if you understand.”

            The crowd responded in a flat call of “yes”s, but it seemed good enough for Vince. 

            “Get to your tents.  It’s an early night tonight. No complaints. This is what you get for the chaos you want to cause here.” He waved them all off and the crowd started to pick up in conversations again as everyone dispersed off into their own directions.

            Sonya turned to Harriet and Aris.  “This seems like it might be kind of fun.”

            Harriet smiled back at her.  “Yeah, I think it’s about time we switch things up here.”  
  
            Aris, though, shrugged on the other side.  “I don’t know, I don’t really see how it will change much.”

            “Why not?” Sonya asked.

            Aris exhaled. He flicked his gaze down to their hands and then away.  “It’s different for you guys.” He pushed himself to stand and dusted off his pants.  “I’m heading in.  I’ll see you both tomorrow.”  
  
            Sonya furrowed her brow, but didn’t call him back.  Her eyes landed on Thomas where he swatted Newt’s hand away from his bruised brow again.

            “They think he helped WCKD too,” Harriet sighed.

            Sonya shrugged. “He did, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.”

            “They don’t know that.”

            “Because they don’t try to,” Sonya said looking back at her.

            Harriet held up her hands in front of her. “I’m not defending them.”

            Sonya pushed her hair back from her face. “I know, I’m sorry.”

            “Come on,” Harriet linked her hand through Sonya’s. “Let’s go lie down and get some rest. It’s been a busy day for everyone and we need the sleep.”

            “Newt and I didn’t finish our checklist for the night.”  
  
            Harriet’s eyes flitted past Sonya in the direction of the boys.  “I don’t think he’s overly concerned.  Besides, Vince said no exceptions.  Come on.”

            Sonya gave her warning with her eyes, but her mouth curled up in a smile to betray her and she let Harriet lead her toward the tent.

 


	2. Day 42

_Day 42 –_

_The nightmares came back again. I guess at this point I can just call them dreams.  We’d gone to sleep and… I wasn’t even sure it was a dream at first. Real life just sort of melted into it. At one minute, Harri was sleeping next to me.  She woke me up to tell me it was time to get up; that the meeting was canceled and the jobs had to be done.  I kept trying to remind her it didn’t matter, that we had off today anyway. But she sounded scared and was shaking me and trying to wake me up even though I was already awake.  I kept yelling at her to stop – that she was hurting me.  But there were tears in her eyes and she was screaming at me to wake up.  The tent was so hot and the flames that caught onto it and crept up the sides just made it hotter.  I tried to move so we could get out of the tent, but my arms were strapped in like they were back at WCKD.  I couldn’t move my head to look at Harri anymore.  And then I heard it.  I heard his voice – that same Doctor that was in charge of me back at the facility. Telling me to go to sleep.  Go to sleep and it won’t hurt._

_When Harri woke me up this morning it was gentle, but I think I ruined it.  She tried to kiss me and I screamed awake.  Rushed out of the bed to make sure the tent wasn’t in flames.  I think she thinks I’m pulling away from her, but I don’t know how to tell her that it’s the exact opposite.  I could never pull away from her.  But I’m afraid I will push her away.  I need to find a way to stop these nightmares._

_Anyway, I need to run. The meeting’s about to begin and Harri’s been sitting on the other side of the tent pretending to be busy so it doesn’t come off like she’s waiting for me and making sure I’m okay.  I’m worrying her, I know it. I just don’t know how to stop._

“First, we want to thank you all for coming back out here,” the woman standing next to Vince said.

            “Not like we had a choice,” Minho mumbled from behind Sonya.

            Her mouth curled in a smirk.  She’d only met Minho about a year ago, but while they were trapped at WCKD they became fast friends.  His fire-back attitude was what kept her moving, kept her hopeful.  He was so sure Thomas was coming to get them.  And he was right.  If it weren’t for him, she was pretty sure she’d have given up a long time ago – given into WCKD’s hands. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be tucked into Harriet’s side right now.

            “We’ve put together the five groups.  When we call your names, please go to the assigned Leader.” She turned to the other woman at the far-right end of the line and gestured for her to start. 

            Sonya waited through the lists, listening carefully for names she recognized.  Aris was called in the first group and, to her horror, didn’t have anyone else they were close to in the group with him.  She hoped there was at least another Maze kid with him that he could be with. 

            The next group was Vince’s and Sonya swallowed as Harriet pulled her arm from around her and stood up with the rest of the group that was called.  At least she had Minho with her – Sonya was sure they’d get along.  Or they’d butt heads completely. And that girl was there too, Brenda.  Sonya worried at her lip.  All three of them had pretty headstrong attitudes from what she could tell. She wondered if that was part of the plan.

            Newt, Thomas and Frypan scooted closer to her and she offered a small smile to them.

            “Hopefully we’ll all get to stick together,” Thomas nodded.

            Sonya looked forward as Ruby cleared their throat.  “We’re about to find out.”

            The names went on alphabetically and Sonya looked up at Gally was called.  Frypan shifted somewhere to the left.  Clearly, they wouldn’t all be together after all. A few more names were called and then something rippled inside of her as she heard her name ring loud over the group.  She swallowed and looked over at the other three. She pushed herself to stand and as she took her first step, she heard Thomas’ name over the crowd.  She paused and looked down at him. 

            His eyes were still on someone across the group and Newt’s jaw flexed next to him.  Sonya looked forward and found a boy narrowing bruised eyes at Thomas.  She turned and tapped Thomas on the shoulder.  “Come on,” she said.

            Thomas ran a tongue over his teeth before he pushed himself up and followed her to the group.  They stood in their group with Gally and when Sonya noticed Jonah in their small crowd, she waved him closer to them.  The four of them stood silently together and waited as Boris called out his group.  Frypan, the new cook and that other girl – Teresa, Sonya was pretty sure her name was – stepped in line.  She caught the look on Thomas’ face and followed his gaze to where Newt walked over to join Jorge’s group – alone.

            “Alright,” Vince called out clapping his hands.  “Everyone has their groups. Get started. If I hear one word from your Group Lead that you’re acting out of line – it’s into the Slammer.”

            That seemed enough for everyone and the groups started to follow their leaders as they were brought off to different corners of the beach.  Sonya spared one more glance over at Harriet, who gave her a smile and a wink before she turned and jogged up to Minho and turned to start talking with him.

            Sonya turned back to her own group as Ruby started speaking.

            “Alright, you heard Vince.  I don’t want any bullshit.  The first sign of any disruption and you’re in the Slammer – I won’t even wait for Vince. Do you understand?” She seemed to look directly at Thomas and Gally and then flicked her gaze across the group to where the other boy with bruised eyes stood with arms crossed.  “First thing’s first. I’m pairing you all up to get to know each other.”

            Sonya’s chest tightened again.  It was bad enough she was with a group she didn’t know that well.  Sure, she knew Thomas.  And yes, she had been acquainted with Gally.  But she didn’t _know_ either of them.  Not like she knew Harriet and Aris.  Not even like she knew Minho.  Hell, she’d have felt way more comfortable if Newt was at least here.  But now Ruby was pressing her shoulder to shoulder with another girl who was slightly shorter than her and definitely angrier.  Sonya tried to remember where she’d at least seen her around, but she couldn’t place it. 

            “Alright,” Ruby nodded.  “Ten minutes and I want you each to be able to answer any questions I ask about the other. Go.”

            Sonya swallowed and turned to the girl.  She opened her mouth to speak, but the girl started before she could take a breath.

            “Name’s Emma.  I’m from Maze C.  I was a Spearhead there and I hunt here in Work Group A,” she crossed her arms and took a breath before she continued. “Uhhhh, I don’t like people who snore and I enjoy any type of physical activity.  I broke my arm twice in the Maze so it doesn’t work as well as it should – but I can still beat your ass with it if it comes to it.” Her eyes met Sonya’s on this last bit.  She smiled then and held out a scarred hand.  “And you?”  
  
            Sonya hesitantly shook her hand.  “I… Um.  I’m Sonya.  I was in a Maze also. B.  I was a Healer there and I work in the Med Tent here with Group B.”  She looked at Emma for a minute and considered her options before she lifted her head a bit more and continued.  “I don’t like people who are rude right off the bat and I can throw a punch just as hard as the next girl.  I _do_ like a person who can hold their own because I don’t like to pick up slack.  I can empathize, but I’m not someone to stand back and let others take lead.”

            Emma’s mouth quirked up in a smirk and she nodded.  “I like you.  This could work.”

            Sonya blinked.  “I also have a girlfriend in Vince’s group.”

            Emma shot her hands up.  “Whoa, didn’t mean like that, don’t worry.  I’ve got a girlfriend in Arielle’s group,” she pointed with her chin toward the tree-line where Aris’ group was huddled together.

            Sonya nodded.  “Okay.”

            Emma dropped her hands and furrowed her brows at Sonya.  “You were saved on the train, weren’t you?”  
  
            Sonya blinked.  “Excuse me?”

            “The train rescue.  If you were a Maze Kid you must have been with WCKD with the rest of us – but I don’t remember you in Denver, and it’s hard not to remember everyone from there,” she snorted.  “We were all packed in small rooms and got to know each other really well real fast.”

            “Oh, yeah,” Sonya nodded.  “My friend Aris and I were on that train.”

            “You’re lucky,” Emma said.  “You missed the worst of it.”

            Sonya lifted her eyes to meet Emma’s again.  She’d asked Minho about it before, but he never went into detail about the torture he endured there. She never wanted to press the issue.

            “That’s where I met Sophia.”

            Sonya turned again toward Aris’ group.  “She’s with Aris.  He’ll take care of her.”  
  
            “She doesn’t need anyone to take care of her,” Emma snapped.

            “No!” Sonya turned back to her. “I didn’t mean it like that! Just that.  There’s someone there who was in a Maze too, who was taken by WCKD.  She’s not alone.”

            “Thanks for the assurance,” Emma said, lowering a brow.

            Sonya scratched her arm for something to do and looked around the group.  Gally stood with arms crossed looking down at some boy like he was about to pummel him.  Thomas was standing across from Aaron, but neither boy was looking at one another – seemingly more interested in some dirt under their fingernails or taking an eyelash from their eye.

            “I feel like this is gonna be a long project,” Emma sighed.

            Sonya turned back to her and watched her looking around at the others as well.

            “Alright!” Ruby called out suddenly.  “Everyone stand in a line next to one another.” She paused only a moment to let everyone line up.  “Let’s go down the line. I want a name and two facts about your partner.” She nodded to a girl on the end.

            “This is Evie. She’s got blonde hair and is shorter than me.”

            “Try again,” Ruby said, unimpressed with the snickers down the line.

            The girl sighed heavily.  “Evie. She likes plants. She…also liked vegetable scramble.”

            Sonya shifted her gaze to Ruby. She knew it was most likely a lie, that the girl just made it up on the spot, but Ruby seemed to not want to waste more time.  She nodded at Evie and continued to make her way down the line.

            Emma stepped up when Ruby got to her. “Sonya. She was in Maze B and has a girlfriend.”

            Ruby’s eyes shifted to Sonya.  She stepped up.  “This is Emma. She was in Maze C and…” she tried to remember anything other than the fact that she said she had a girlfriend, not wanting to just repeat the same facts.  “She… oh! She was a…” she looked at Emma trying to remember the word she called herself.  She looked up at Ruby remembering a different fact. “She broke her arm. Twice.”

            Ruby shifted her eyes between the two of them, nodded and then pointed to Thomas where he stood next to her.

            “This is Aaron.  He’s a dick and throws a weak punch.”

            Sonya twisted her mouth to keep from laughing, but somewhere down the line Gally barked his out shamelessly.

            “Yeah?” she heard Aaron say.  “This is Thomas. He’s a traitor that worked with that bitch for WCKD and wanted-”

            Sonya didn’t hear the rest of his sentence.  All she saw was a blur to her left and suddenly Emma was pulling her back as Thomas landed on top of Aaron, fist swinging. Someone was at Thomas’ back immediately trying to pull him up but was knocked out of the way by Gally’s boot.  Finally, a sharp whistle sounded right as Sonya broke out of Emma’s grasp.  By the time she reached Thomas’ side, the others had pulled the two apart.

            “Get back in line!” Ruby snapped.

            The rest of the group lined back up, Gally and two others taking the place between Thomas and Aaron.

            Ruby scanned the line.  “What is wrong with you people?” The way she asked it made it more of a statement.  No one answered.  “You came here to the Safe Haven to be _safe._ To be _free_ of WCKD.  Yet it’s all you ever seem to think about and to hold against each other.”

            “It’d be a lot easier if we didn’t have their lackeys here with us,” someone at the beginning of the line shouted.

            Sonya wrapped a hand around Thomas’ wrist.  His pulse beat rapidly against her light grip, but he didn’t move.

            “Okay, new rule,” Ruby started.  “If I hear the words ‘WCKD’ or ‘lackey’ or anything remotely similar out of anyone’s mouth one more time, you’re in the Slammer for ten hours. Second offense you’re in there for twenty-four hours and the third offense? I’m not bothering with the Slammer.  Third offense you get Cleaning Duty for the duration of this project Vince has put together.”  She paused, but no one made any sign of objection.  “Good. Now we’ve been giving three tasks to accomplish in the next two weeks.  If you’d gotten through this bit, I was going to let you all choose your groups, but since you couldn’t cooperate for one damn task it looks like we’re doing things a bit differently.  We’re all going to work together now.”

            There was a bit of shifting but still, no one objected.

            “Might as well get started,” Ruby nodded.

 

            The first task they set about had them walking through the woods ten minutes later.  She gave them enough time to change their clothes if they needed to, but were held to the time limit.  Most of the morning was spent collecting baskets of full leaves.  What for, Ruby wouldn’t say, but they had to find leaves that weren’t torn or ripped in any way and ones that weren’t faded either.

            Sonya gravitated toward Jonah and the two of them worked in tandem to find their leaves.  After the first half hour, Emma found her way to the tree next to them.  A half hour after that, Sonya finally called her over to help them. 

            The sun was nearly above them when Ruby finally whistled out to bring them all back to the beach.  Sonya pushed her hair back from her damp forehead with a weak arm.  It’s not like she’d done any heavy lifting, but the constant movements were more than she was used to back in the Med Tent where she and Newt typically passed the time marking off checklists or just talking.

            “Alright, everyone deposit the baskets off to the side there.  Go wash up and get some lunch. We meet back here in two hours. No exceptions.”

            The group started to disperse back toward the tents and Sonya watched as the other groups started appearing from different sections of the woods or from the shoreline. 

            “Well,” Emma spun and took a few steps backward as she spoke.  “Catch you both later.”

            Sonya waved her off and then immediately caught sight of Harriet.  Something in her chest warmed at the sight of her laughing with Brenda.  She loved Harriet’s laugh; the way her eyes closed every time she laughed no matter how hard or soft.  Sometimes Sonya thought she’d known that laugh forever – even before the Maze.  But she could also remember the first time she heard it.  She knew that there was no way she’d have forgotten that laugh – despite the swipe.  She’d remember that laugh before her own name.

            “Hey girl,” Harriet nodded to her as she got closer.  She reached forward and pressed a kiss to Sonya’s cheek.  “How was your group?” Her eyes lifted as she scanned the rest of Sonya’s group as they started disappearing into tents and meeting back up with other friends.

            “There was a bit of a rough start, but it was okay,” Sonya shrugged.  “Yours?”

            “Minho and Jasmine had to work together which was amusing enough but nothing too messy.”

            “Which was shocking,” Brenda added. “I thought Jasmine was gonna take a swing any minute.  I was almost hoping she would.”  
  
            “What?” Sonya spun to Brenda.

            “I don’t mean anything against Minho, obviously. I just wanted to see what kind of arm the girl has so I can file it away for future reference.  Just in case.” The way her mouth curled into a smirk made Sonya raise a brow.  “Oh, I’m kidding. I’m not gonna get in any fights and neither is your girlfriend here. We play nicely.”

 

            Lunch was calming for the most part. Everyone sat around in their own spaces and munched down on a lunch that Jorge and Boris had prepared for everyone while they were off doing their tasks.  Sonya stayed with Harriet and Jonah and, to her surprise, Brenda stayed with them – she and Harriet laughing and filling them in on how their morning group went.  Sonya and Jonah mostly just laughed and nodded along, not having much to share about their morning.  Neither mentioned Thomas nor Aaron. Sonya wasn’t sure why, but somehow it didn’t feel like it was her place.

            Aris joined them halfway through the hour, quieter than usual.  When Sonya asked him what was wrong he just shook his head and shrugged.  “Just don’t really like anyone in my group.”

            Sonya turned to look over her shoulder and squinted against the sun.  She found the silhouettes of Emma and the girl that must have been Sophia sitting together with a few others.  She turned back to Aris.  “What about Sophia?”

            Aris looked up to her.  “You know her?”

            “Well, not personally,” she shrugged.  “But her girlfriend, Emma, is in our group.  She seemed nice.” She turned to Jonah for confirmation.

            “I don’t know,” Aris shrugged.  “I didn’t really talk to her.  I don’t think a lot of people are too excited about me being in their group, to be honest.”

            “Why wouldn’t they be?” Brenda asked.

            Aris didn’t look up.

            “If this is about WCKD-”

            “Of course it is,” Thomas said from behind her.

            She turned and squinted up at him.

            “They think he was on their side, too.  Under their wing or whatever.”

            “Well that’s just stupid,” Harriet said.

            “Is it?” Aris asked.  “I mean I was there. I was with Thomas and Teresa, I designed our Maze.”

            “Aris,” Sonya shook her head.  “We’ve been over this a dozen times.  None of this is your fault.”  She turned around then and looked back up at Thomas.  “It’s not any of your faults.”

            Thomas held her gaze for a minute.  There was something skeptical in his eyes but he didn’t say anything.  His eyes flitted to Brenda.  “Bren, have a second?”

            “I’m eating,” she said flatly, pulling a leaf from her sandwich and tossing it to the tray.

            “Bren,” Thomas repeated.

            She looked up at him then.  “You asked if I have a second. I don’t, I’m eating.”  
  
            Sonya heard Thomas shift on the sand behind her.  “It’s Newt.”  
  
            Brenda’s stare remained on him though something on her face shifted just a bit.  Finally, she dropped her gaze to her food and tossed it back onto the tray before she pushed herself up to stand.

            “Is everything okay?” Sonya asked, turning around to Thomas.

            He barely glanced at her as he spoke. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

            Sonya furrowed her brow as she watched Brenda follow Thomas across the Haven.  She kept her eyes on them until they disappeared into the tent that Thomas and the others shared.

           

            The afternoon duties weren’t much better. Everyone separated into their respective groups again and went off to their corners to continue working.  Sonya’s group no longer had to worry about collecting leaves, but this time they were stalking through the forest looking for thin, sturdy twigs.  She, Emma and Jonah teamed up again.  She tried steering them close to Thomas and Gally, but never found the time to get close enough to listen to their murmured conversations.

            Once the sun set, they retreated back for dinner and a bit of free time before heading into their tents.  Most of the others ended up heading in early – tired out from the excess work done.  When Harriet stretched out a hand to lead Sonya back to their tent she shook her head.  “I just want to check on Colin quickly.  No one’s been in there today so I want to make sure he’s okay and set up for the night.”

            Harriet smiled softly and nodded.  “Don’t be too long.”

            “I won’t,” Sonya assured her.  She turned and made her way across to the Med Tent.  It would only take a few minutes to switch out his IV and make sure he was covered for the cool night air.

            She was a bit surprised to see the unzipped tent, but further surprised when she entered to see Newt hunched over the counter.  “Hey,” she said softly.  “What’re you doing in here?”

            Newt turned to look over his shoulder at her briefly before he went back to whatever he was doing on the counter.  “Could ask you the same.”

            Sonya glanced down to Collin to see him resting peacefully, already tucked in with a fresh IV.  She walked closer to Newt.  “Everything okay?”

            “Yeah,” Newt nodded.  “Just figured I’d go over the list and make sure the stuff still got done.  I know tomorrow’s a scheduled Off day and since today was already an implemented one I just figured Colin shouldn’t be forgotten about.”

            Sonya reached the counter and looked down at the list he was checking off.  Her gaze landed on the scratches on the back of his right hand and she immediately reached out to grab it.  “Newt what-”

            He pulled his hand back from her and stepped a bit to the side.  “It’s nothing.”  
  
            “What do you mean it’s nothing?” Sonya asked.  “Newt those are open scratches. Did you clean them?”

            “Of course I did,” he mumbled.

            Sonya dropped her gaze back to his hand. “What happened?”

            “Fell into a tree. Bark scratched me up.”

            Sonya watched him for a moment as he concentrated on the rest of the checklist.  She knew bark scratches.  There were plenty of times Hunters or Landers came in with scratch marks.  Builders were full of them.  They were messy, surface scrapes.  Not repetitive lines in a row.

            “What?” Newt asked not taking his focus from the sheet.

            Sonya leaned back against the counter. “How many times did it happen today?”  
  
            The pencil stopped scratching along the paper.  “How many times did what happen?”

            She looked sideways at him.  “How many times did you hear it?”

            Newt slowly and calculatedly placed the pencil on the clipboard.  “How many times did I hear what?”

            “You know what I’m talking about,” Sonya sighed.

            Newt stood up straighter and looked directly at her now.  She was suddenly very aware of how much taller he was.  He seemed older suddenly too and something about the way he looked at her made Sonya feel small.

            “Say it,” Newt said, calmly.

            “I’m not gonna say it.”

            “No, go ahead,” Newt nodded.

            “I’m not repeating it.”  
  
            “Why not?”

            “Because it’s a messed-up name for people.”

            “Is it?” Newt asked.  “Isn’t it the truth? Go ahead. I hear it enough out there anyway. What’s one more time?”

            Sonya felt her fists curl as she held his gaze.  “I never pushed you to tell me anything about what happened because it was none of my business.  And because of that I never made assumptions.  I’m not like any of those people out there, so don’t group me in with them.”

            Newt’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing.

            Sonya continued.  “I’ve had nothing but respect for you and I’ve never thought of you differently.  So, stop acting like you’re a… a burden or like you belong here any less than the rest of us.”

            A muscle flickered in Newt’s jaw as he held her gaze, but he said nothing.

            Sonya stared back, determined not to turn away. 

            Finally, Newt exhaled.  His shoulders slumped and his face softened as he dropped his gaze to the floor between them.  “I’m sorry.”

            “You don’t have to be,” Sonya insisted.  “That’s the point.”  She waited as he turned and leaned back on the counter again.  “Listen, I’ll finish up in here. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

            Newt didn’t answer. His gaze just lingered on Colin sleeping in the hammock.  After a moment, he spoke. “You ever wonder how things would have been if WCKD didn’t take us?”

            Sonya turned and leaned back on the counter next to him looking across at Colin.  “More often than I should, probably.”

            In her peripherals, Sonya saw Newt shake his head.  “I keep wanting to be mad.  I keep wanting to hate WCKD, but I can’t.”

            Sonya furrowed her brows and looked up at him.  “What?”

            “Don’t get me wrong,” Newt said, turning to her.  “I think they’re horrible people.  But, I don’t know.  I think there were some things they did right.”

            “Really? Because all I’ve gotten out of them is pain.”

            “You got family,” Newt shrugged. “Friends. Harriet.”

            Sonya shifted.  “Well, yeah.”

            “I got to live when I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”  
  
            Sonya looked back up at him.

            Newt shrugged and looked back across the tent.  “If they hadn’t taken me, I probably would have grown up in the Scorch like all of these other people who aren’t immune.  I would’ve Cranked out a lot earlier probably, been exposed earlier and all that.  I wouldn’t have ended up in Denver.” Newt nodded.  “Teresa wouldn’t have found me.”

            Sonya watched him for a minute and something pained inside of her chest and clawed at her.

            He took a deeper breath and seemed to snap out of whatever reverie he had fallen into.  “Anyway, I think you’re right.  Maybe sleep is a good idea.”

            Sonya feigned a smile and nodded.  “I’ll finish up the checklist.”

            “You’re sure?”

            “Yeah, it’s not a problem.”

            “Alright.” Newt smiled a small smile and clapped a hand lightly on her shoulder before he pushed off the counter and left through the tent flaps.

            Sonya didn’t know how long she stood there watching the tent flaps blow lightly in the cool night breeze, but when she finally did finish the checklist and get back to her tent, Harriet was fast asleep.  She curled up next to her and heard a small sound before Harriet turned over and wrapped an arm around her to pull her closer.  She breathed in the clover scent that always seemed to follow Harriet around and drifted off.

 


	3. Day 43

_Day 43 –_  
  


_The nightmares didn’t come last night.  Not really.  Instead, I dreamt of a home.  I know it had to be a dream and not a memory because Newt was there this time.  The two of us were sat on the floor next to a soft couch.  There was a book he was reading to me about penguins.  I think they were penguins._

_He kept coughing but I couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t until there was blood splattered on the page that it occurred to me. When I looked up into black eyes, a gaping maw and dark veins – I woke up._

“You’re sure you’re doing okay?”  
  
            Sonya closed the journal and looked up as Harriet tossed her damp towel to the side.  She nodded up at her and curled her mouth into a small smile.

            “You know you don’t have to lie to me, right?” Harriet smiled softly down to her.  She sat down next to her on the bed. “That doesn’t mean you have to talk either if you’re not ready to.  But you don’t have to lie.”

            Sonya dropped her gaze to her lap.  “I’m sorry.”

            “You don’t have to apologize either.”

            Sonya’s eyes shifted but didn’t quite meet Harriet’s face just yet.

            “Hey,” Harriet’s hand softly gripped her own. “Do you know what I dreamed about?”

            Sonya looked up now and raised her brows just slightly in question.

            Harriet settled a bit more comfortably on the pallets.  “I dreamt of a different world, I think.  One that wasn’t ridden with solar flares and infection.”  Her eyes scanned the walls of the tent as she spoke.  “There were all these different houses – different sizes and shutters in different colors.  Gardens with flowers bursting through and trees with swings hanging from them.  It was peaceful.  Someone was laughing in the distance but I couldn’t see who it was.  All I could see was you.”  She turned now to face Sonya.  “Just you – sitting at my kitchen table.  A cup of hot tea in front of you. And when I walked down the stairs you just smiled up at me – like that.” She nodded to Sonya.

            She didn’t realize when her mouth curled up into a softer smile, but she couldn’t help the way it widened then over an exhaled laugh.

            “You looked so beautiful,” Harriet said quietly, brushing strands of hair back from Sonya’s face.  “The morning sun came through the window and brushed against you.  And you just kept smiling and finally said, _I’ve been waiting for you._ ” Harriet’s hand trailed back down Sonya’s face and beneath her chin, tilting her up just slightly.  “And then you kissed me – and it was different.”

            “Different how?” Sonya asked.

            Harriet’s gaze slid to the side a bit as if remembering the moment – as if she could see it just past Sonya.  “It was just… simple. It wasn’t filled with worry and concern that we always have here.  It wasn’t laced with a fear of _god please don’t let this be the last time_.” She blinked her way back to Sonya and dropped her hand.  “I know we can’t help that.  And I know there will never be a time in this world that we ever feel truly safe – that we ever truly feel that comfort and absolute trust in the world not to destroy us but, I have to think that maybe one day, we can get close enough to taste it.”

            Sonya swallowed down against the rock lodged in her throat.  “One day,” she nodded.  And even if she didn’t believe it for herself, she had to believe it for Harriet.  She reached up and curled her hand against the back of Harriet’s neck and pulled her forward, let their mouths crash into each other as they crashed back down against flat, roughly-sewn pillows and scratchy comforters and an uncomfortable stack of broken pallets.

            She felt calloused hands at her waist and ran her own hands down scars that would never disappear, now built into their skin and bones from the past. She breathed in harsh memories and pain that have formed their lives up until this point – that would continue to form their lives.  But inside of it all, they still had each other.  And perhaps Harriet was right.  Maybe one day, they’d taste that comfort.  One day.

 

 

            The sand bit at Sonya’s ankles as it found its way beneath her trousers and into the tops of her boots.  She longed for a day when she’d be somewhere miles away from sand.  She missed the snow and mountains and ice caves. All she wanted was something familiar.

            The Spring was filled with family, people she’d come to learn and love.  All that was left was Harriet and Aris.  Yes – she’d met a few new people.  Some friends from the Right Arm – Jonah, Caroline and Landon.  She’d come to learn Thomas and Newt.  Minho and Kayla. But there was no Ximena, no Anastasia, no Rachel. No Beth.

            There were acquaintances and strangers. She wondered if one day they might feel like a family, but knew the chances were slim.  The only person she’d come closer to was Newt – and even the two of them only talked when they were working. 

            She eyed him now as he sat off to the side with Thomas and Frypan.  Minho would be coming back from his morning run sometime soon, which meant Brenda would be getting ready to go out.  Yes, she knew their schedules.  She knew the routines of all of these people – but she didn’t know _them_.  It bothered her.  But then, she’d learned the hard way not to bother getting close to people when the world could rip them away at any moment.

            Sonya considered the girl across the way with dark wavy hair and striking eyes.  Maybe she had it right – always on her own unless she was talking with the Cooks as she picked up her food.  Teresa.  She worked for WCKD, even after the Mazes.  A lot of people here held that against her – against Thomas and Aris.  But it didn’t stop her from doing her part.  She never fought back, never argued with anyone.  She stayed on her own, did her work and went back to being on her own. 

            _“Teresa wouldn’t have found me,_ ” Newt had said to her last night.

            Sonya still never knew the story behind that – didn’t ask.  It wasn’t her business, as far as she was concerned.  Just like her past wasn’t anyone’s business. Not that she had any dark secrets hidden – but she also didn’t feel the need to spill about her days at WCKD’s facility, drained and tortured, forced to sit through tragedy after made-up tragedy.

            Granted, her invented memories that WCKD made her sit through – the memories that never happened that they pushed into her – weren’t real at all.  Visions of torturing and being tortured.  All of it was made up for her suffering.  Made up for her enzymes.  As much as it hurt, at the end of the day: none of it was real.  What Newt had gone through – from what she understood – was real. It was very much real.  And somehow, he was able to move day to day under the stares of others, past whispers and pointed glares and looks of disgust.  Just like this other girl – Teresa.  Vulgar gestures and cast offs.

            Sonya knew that on some level, she had it easier.

            But that didn’t mean she had it _easy_.


	4. Day 45

_Day 45_ –

            _Didn’t get the chance to write yesterday. Woke up a bit later than usual and had to run out of the tent to get to work.  Newt was already there – which was a first.  Shadows darkened his eyes more yesterday than they did any other day, but he shrugged it off. So I did too._

_No update on Colin yet._

_No update on much of anything, really. Today we go back to whatever this project is Vince has us working on.  We’re meant to meet in our groups in twenty more minutes. I barely have energy to stand and make it to the Washing Corner, but there’s sand all over me from last night’s wind blowing it into the tent.  I forgot to zip it up last night after Harri and I crashed onto the bed and instantly fell asleep.  We’ve both agreed to remind each other from now on – especially if the wind carries on like this._

_Anyway, I’d better go.  I don’t feel like hearing Ruby go off on me being late.  Any excuse to yell, that one._

  
  


Sonya’s fingers ached as she tied yet another string of stems together.  She lost count after twenty.  She was able to stay warm in her layers and had pulled on gloves for her hands, but the fingers were cut of them to allow for the tedious work.  Between the constant miniscule movements and the biting wind, she was sure they would fall off any moment.

            “You alright over there?” Jonah laughed from across the small circle they’d formed.

            She flicked her gaze up to meet his and rolled her eyes.  “I swear I’ll be shocked if I don’t dream of tying leaves up tonight.”

            “I’ve already dreamt of picking more leaves than I could imagine,” Emma yawned on her other side.  “Always searching for the perfect one.  It’s the most monotonous thing,” she shook her head. “But I guess it’s better than the alternative.”  
  
            Sonya dropped her gaze back to the thin stems in her fingers as the silence built up around them.

            “Whoops,” Emma said.  “Leave it to me,” she laughed harshly.

            “No, no,” Sonya shook her head immediately.  “It’s okay.”

            “Yeah,” Jonah shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better to talk about it.”

            “Sometimes it’s better to laugh about it,” Emma added. “For me, anyway.  It’s the only way to get through, really.”

            “I don’t know,” Jonah said, tilting his head at the leaves in his hands. “I find it easier to actually give it the weight it deserves.”

            “To each their own, I guess,” Emma said. “What about you?”

            Sonya looked back up at her with raised brows.

            “How do you get through it?” Emma asked.

            “Get through… what?”  
  
            “You know, the nightmares.  The memories.  You get them, don’t you?”  
  
            Sonya swallowed and dropped her gaze. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

            “Don’t tell me you keep it all buried in that pretty little head of yours,” Jonah said.  “I’ve talked to Aris. You’ve been through some shit.”

            Sonya kept her gaze steady on the knot as she finished it.

            “Sorry,” Jonah mumbled.  “I didn’t mean to press.”

            “It’s okay,” she said, voice lilting toward what she hoped was nonchalance.  She picked up another leaf from the basket next to her.  “I write.”  
  
            “You write?” he repeated.

            “Yeah, in a journal.”  
  
            “That actually sounds nice.”

            “It is,” Sonya nodded as she looped the stem around the bundle she’d already created.  “It’s kind of freeing.  You don’t have to worry about other people’s reactions or coming off a certain way or being judged.  You just sort of, exhale onto a page.”

            “Poetic,” Emma added. “Still nothing like human interaction, though.”

            Sonya flicked her eyes up just briefly.  “I guess not, but sometimes that’s not all it’s shaped up to be.”

            As if on cue, raised voices made their way across the sand and the three looked up to find its source.  Sonya immediately found Aaron with a bundle of tied leaves in one hand and an empty basket in the other shouting down at Thomas.

            “Where the hell do you get off taking my findings, Mazer?”

            Thomas, who sat calmly on a bench at the table tying leaves together, simply blinked down at his work.

            “Hello? Idiot, I’m talking to you!”

            “Yo, Normie,” Gally called from his seat across from Thomas.  “Fuck off from us.”  
  
            “I wasn’t even talking to you, you giant boulder.”

            Gally’s head tilted.  “That an insult? I don’t…?”

            Thomas mumbled something under his breath that Sonya couldn’t quite make out, but Gally’s response was loud enough.

            “No, he’s a dick. Don’t let him get his rocks off talking to you like that.” Gally turned suddenly and Sonya’s brows sprung up as she watched a shot of saliva land onto the bundle of leaves in Aaron’s hand.

            Another violent insult was called before Aaron was lunging across the small table.  Gally shifted just in time to let the boy roll off the wooden surface and onto the ground and a minute later, Gally was over him with a fist raised.

            Sonya scrambled with the others to run over and separate them before Ruby came back from her Team Lead meeting with Vince and the others. 

            Emma skidded to a halt first next to Thomas. “What are you doing?” she asked him. “Stop them!”

            Thomas shrugged down at his project. “Neither of them are my business.”

            Sonya bit down and lunged forward with Jonah to grip Gally’s shirt.

            “Get off of me!” he called back to them. 

            “Gally, get back!” someone Sonya didn’t recognize yelled, gripping his arm and pulling him up. 

            She stumbled back as someone pushed her aside and worked with Jonah to finally pull Gally back and off of Aaron.

            “What the hell is your issue?” Emma yelled at both of them.  “If Ruby caught you she’d have flown off the handle and we’d be stuck with an extra hour of work today – you heard her this morning.  You really wanna be stuck with each other another hour?”

            Gally and Aaron only responded with heaving breaths.

            “Stop the goddamn fighting and tie up the stupid leaves.”

            “I would if WCKD’s little pet over here stopped stealing all my shit,” Aaron said.

            Sonya stepped forward, blood thrumming inside of her. “Drop the goddamn names and leave him alone.  Take my basket if you need to, but don’t use your low numbers as an excuse to get on his back for shit that isn’t his fault.”

            Aaron looked down at her and ran a hand over the forming bruise on his jaw.  He spat blood off to the side without breaking eye contact and then stormed off.

            Sonya worked to not think about how she’d probably get stuck dealing with his cuts and bruises later and hoped that maybe Jonah would at least take the brunt of that. 

            “Everyone back to work,” Emma said spinning on them all. “You,” she pointed her chin at Gally. “Wrap your goddamn hand before Ruby asks questions.”

            The group started to disperse but Sonya shrugged off Jonah’s hand and turned to Thomas. “Did you take his leaves?”

            “No,” Thomas said.

            “Are you lying to me?”

            Thomas finally looked away from the leaves in his hand and met her gaze.  “Why would I?”

            Sonya shrugged and dropped her hands to her sides, heart still pounding.   “Why didn’t you stop Gally from fighting him at least? You know Ruby would flip if she saw it.”

            “I’m not his fuckin’ watch dog,” Thomas snapped back.  “What Gally does isn’t my business.”  
  
            Sonya clamped her mouth shut and exhaled through her nose.  Her eyes snagged on Ruby and the other leads coming back from the line of trees.  She dropped her gaze back down to Thomas, but he’d already returned to his leaves.

            “Sonya!”

            She turned and saw Emma and Jonah waving her over. She nodded to them once, but then turned back to Thomas and spoke low so as not to let anyone around them hear.  “Next time you decide it’s okay to let someone else fight on your behalf, at least do it when it’s not gonna affect the rest of our days. Some of us actually want to get through this quickly and see our friends on our downtime.  So stop playing the selfish woe-is-me game, okay?”

            Thomas didn’t look up at her, but his hands stuttered to a stop on the leaves.

            Sonya spun on her heel and made her way over to Emma and Jonah and tried to steady her nerves. She took the seat on her rock and picked up her leaves and went silently back to work, ignoring the look exchanged between Emma and Jonah.  Tied stem after tied stem, she pushed back the memory of fights in WCKD’s steel rooms, memories of pulling Minho and Aris and more captives away from each other.  She would not live through that again.


	5. Day 46

_Day 46 –_

_So yesterday was a bit hectic, but I’m just so goddamn sick of everyone fighting.  I tried to talk to Harri about it, and she gets it – she agrees – but she doesn’t get it the way I do. The way Aris, Jonah and Newt do. The fighting is frustrating, but we’re the ones who have to clean it up every time.  We’re the ones who get the extra work from it.  The Builders don’t have to patch the others up, the Landers aren’t dealing with blood day in and out.  It’s tiring.  No – it’s exhausting.  Everyone’s awful attitudes don’t help matters._

_I’m riling myself up again, I need to calm down.  I was pacing up and down the tent furiously last night I nearly walked a hole into our base.  These damned sand floors aren’t making matters better. I look forward to the day we finally come up with something a bit more stable._

_Anyway, I’m a bit happy that we’re not working on Vince’s project today. It’s supposed to be just a normal work day. I’ve got the night shift today, which means I can spend the morning trying to relax and push yesterday’s incident away.  Harri says I have a knack for holding onto things like that. I try not to, but sometimes I can’t help it.  One day I’ll learn to let go and not let the past hold me down. But I just… how am I supposed to move forward when I don’t know where I’m coming from? How do we move forward as a group if we don’t address our past mistakes?_

The sun was muted behind clouds that morning as Sonya left her tent.  So much so that she had to wonder if the sun had even bothered coming out.  She settled into the line at the food tent behind Minho who’d already gotten back from his run and cleaned off.

            “Morning,” he smiled over his shoulder to her.

            “Hey,” she feigned a smile of her own.

            “Heard you gave Thomas a piece of your mind yesterday.”

            She looked back up at him and her heart stuttered a bit as she waited for Minho’s reaction.

            His mouth quirked up on one side.  “Old habits die hard, huh?”

            A small relieved laugh broke out of her.  “Yeah well, if I didn’t always have so much bloody practice with you and Aris, I’m sure I would have kept a bit quieter.”

            His brows furrowed.  “Did you just say ‘bloody’?”

            Sonya blinked. “Did I?” She shook her head clear and laughed. “That’s what I get for being stuck around only Newt for nearly fifteen hours a week.”

            “Yeah,” Minho laughed turning to grab a tray.  “Kid’ll rub off on you.”  
  
            “You too?” she asked as she grabbed her own.

            “Nah,” Minho winked down at her.  “I think I rubbed off on him.”

            “Oh,” Sonya raised her brows to emphasize the sarcasm.  “Lucky him.”

            “Hey now,” Minho laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”  
  
            She glanced up at him once, but a smile broke over her face at seeing his own.  For a brief, brief moment, Sonya was back in a cold room with metal doors sitting on the even colder floor with one blanket wrapped around her shoulders whispering in the stream of moonlight with Minho while the others slept around them.  She blinked her way back to the food line as Alyx, the new cook, handed her a cup of juice – her gaze somewhere in the distance behind Sonya.  Sonya moved down the line and Frypan dropped two scoops of vegetable scramble onto her tray. 

            “Gee,” Minho said, eyeing his own.  “This is a lovely surprise.”

            “Shove it, Min,” Frypan said as he pointed the scooper at him. “You’re starting to sound like Gally.”

            “And there goes my appetite,” Minho exhaled.

            Sonya and Fry glanced at each other over their laughter before Fry spoke up again.  “You seen him today?”

            “Who, Gally?” Minho asked.

            “Yeah, I saw everyone but him.”

            Sonya glanced over her shoulder to the rest of the Haveners spread around.

            “Probably in another fight,” Minho scowled. “Idiot.”

            “Eh, you didn’t always think so.”

            “Goodbye Frypan,” Minho said, a hint of a warning behind his words.

            Sonya glanced once between the two of them, received a shrug from Frypan and then followed Minho off the line.  “What’d he mean you didn’t always think so?”

            Minho glanced down at her very briefly before going back to searching for a seat. “Never mind that. He’s a mess.”

            “You told me he saved your life,” Sonya said quieter.

            “He did.”

            “So why are you so-”

            “Sonya,” Minho said. Though he smiled, his tone was tight. “I’ve known Gally a long time. He’s done some really good things, but that doesn’t make him a good person. Just like doing bad things doesn’t make him a bad person.”

            She furrowed her brows at him.

            “He’s just kind of,” he shrugged helplessly, “settled in that gray area.”

            “Aren’t we all?”

            Minho tilted his head. “Some more than others, yeah.”

            “What side do you think you’re on?”

            He considered her for a moment before he spoke. “My own.”

            She turned to follow him as he started walking again.  “Wouldn’t you want to be on a side with your friends? With people you’ve known?”

            “Do you?” he asked.

            “I don’t know,” she said, picking up her pace to keep up with his long strides. She looked up to see if they were nearing their destination and she caught sight of Teresa in the sand in the distance leaning back against a tree eating alone. “I just think it could get lonely otherwise.” 

            “It could get peaceful, you mean.”

            “No,” she shook her head as they stopped and she was grateful for the reprieve. “Lonely and peaceful are two different things.”

            “You’ve said that to me before, you know,” he said, eyes lighting up.

            “I know,” she nodded up to him.  “Apparently it bears repeating if you didn’t listen the first time.”  
  
            His mouth twisted into a smile before something darkened on his face.  “I’m glad they got you out of there, Sonya.”

            Her own smile fell just a bit.  “I’m glad they got you too.”

            “Oi!”

            They both turned to look in the direction of the call to see Newt waving them over – or, maybe just Minho.  Sonya pulled her gaze away to search for her friends. She knew Harriet was still rinsing off and wouldn’t be out for another few minutes.

            “Why don’t you come sit with us?” Minho asked.

            “It’s okay,” Sonya shrugged. “I’m sure Aris is around here somewhere.”

            “Okay, well if you two change your mind...” Minho nodded a farewell to her and took off toward the others.

            Sonya chanced another look in their direction to see Thomas eyeing her before he looked back down at his food.

           

            Harriet was finishing breakfast and Jonah was finishing some long story that Sonya lost track of when Vince whistled loud across the Haven for everyone’s attention.  She turned her focus to him where he stood at the front, waving people in to listen.  With one glance back to the others, Sonya stood with them and started walking toward the crowd.

            “What’s going on?” Emma asked someone walking past them.

            “No idea,” the boy shrugged.

            The Team Leads continued to wave everyone in to sit together until they were all settled in.  Silence took over as Vince eyed all of them with his hands on his hips.  Half of Sonya worried that they would try to get them to do more of the Project instead of the regular work day.  She was looking forward to just normal routine. She was also looking forward to more time with Harriet and her friends instead of dealing with Thomas, Aaron and Gally – who’s showed up just in time for the meeting with a dozen or so scrapes on his arm.  Sonya furrowed a brow, curious, but mostly annoyed that it meant she’d have to see him later.  Maybe he’d go in the early shift and Aris and Jonah could deal with him.

            “Alright,” Vince started with a clap.  “Thank you all for coming together here. Just wanna go over a few things and the work day can begin.”

            Sonya allowed a small breath of relief.

            “First, you guys have been doing great.  The Leads here have been letting me know that fighting – while not completely gone – is at a low. I want to thank you all for putting your differences aside at least somewhat. Second, the progress seems to be going great.  We’ve already got two new meals sorted out that we’ll be happy to debut when this is all done and we’ve got a couple finished decorations with some still in the works.” He gestured to the side where the wreaths of leaves they’d been tying together sat stacked upon each other. 

            Sonya’s fingers hurt just looking at them.

            “We have one last idea we want to bring to the group.” 

            Sonya watched as he gestured to someone on the far side of the audience and then she saw Brenda stand and work her way through the people sitting to get to the front.  She and Jorge stood just to the side of Vince.

            “Jorge and Brenda have shared an idea with me that I think would go a long way here, so we wanna share that with you.  I’ll let them explain.” He turned to them and gestured forward.

            Jorge stepped up and cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ll let Brenda take over for the most part, but I just want to remind you all that this is something that we hope will bring the community together.  We used to do it in our own community back in the Scorch and it was a tradition that we did once every few months that brought us all closer – helped us get to know one another.” He smiled down at Brenda and nodded for her to explain.

            “Okay, so,” she said, louder than Jorge and almost more powerfully. There had always been a powerful air to her.  “At its most basic point, it’s a gift exchange.”

            There was a sudden wave of groans across the Haven.

            “Yo!” she called out. “Shut the hell up and let me speak. Animals,” she shook her head and Sonya could help laughing.

            “Love that girl,” Harriet snorted.

            “She’d have gone far in the Spring,” Sonya added.

            “She’d have run the goddamn Spring,” Aris said, earning him a swift punch from Harriet.  “With you, obviously,” he added.

            Brenda continued. “What you’ll do is write your name on one of the pieces of scrap that the Team Leads are gonna give you. We’re gonna collect them all and then pass the bucket around. Everyone will grab a name. If you get your own name, you put it back and take a new one. Don’t show anyone the name.  It’ll then be your responsibility to come up with some sort of gift to give this person on the night of our bonfire.”  There were mumbles around the audience until Brenda shouted out again.  “What’d I just say?”

            Sonya couldn’t help the pang of jealousy she felt toward Brenda. Envy of the respect she garnered from the Maze kids _and_ the Normies. She was someone built from the Scorch – she survived the Flare, but because she wasn’t a Mazer, she still got more respect than Newt or any of the others who’d been infected at some point.  It helped that she could hold her own in a fight.

            “You can’t tell anyone who you have as it’s meant to be a secret, but the point is that it will force you to get to know someone – the ins and outs and what they like because you’ll eventually have to give them a gift. Any questions?”

            As expected, there were a few, but Sonya didn’t pay too much mind to them, turning to the others instead.  “This is either going to go really well or really badly.”

            “I vote bad,” Emma snorted.  “I mean, I’m hopeful, but could you imagine getting some git like Aaron? Or what if you get someone you don’t even know? That kid Tim,” she nodded down to someone that Sonya didn’t think she’d ever even seen before.  “Imagine having to just suddenly spring up conversation with them without it being obvious you have them? How do you even do that?”

            “You’ve gotta talk to everyone so it doesn’t seem suspicious,” Aris said, eyes still on Brenda. “I get it.”

            Sonya lowered a brow.

            “It’s a way of everyone talking to each other.  I mean, think about it. If I have you,” he nodded at Sonya, “but you have Thomas and Thomas has Sophia, and so on – we all have to sort of talk in a circle.  I could talk to you and also Harriet and whoever else, you would talk to everyone who Thomas talks to, Thomas would talk to everyone Sophia talks to.  It brings us all together.”

            “Well look at you,” Emma said, leaning back on her elbows. “If I wasn’t into girls I think I’d be quite sweet on you for that little bit alone.”

            Aris’ cheeks burned as he furrowed his brow down at her.  “What makes you think I’d be into you?”

            Emma’s brows shot up and Sonya joined the others in their laughs.

            “Look alive,” Harriet said. “Think we’re starting this thing up.”  
  
            Sonya looked up and sure enough, Boris was walking toward them passing out slips of scrap paper to everyone and a few pencils here and there to share.

            When her name was scratched on a slip and deposited in the small bucket, she looked across the crowd to find Thomas.  She wondered briefly what it _would_ be like to get someone she didn’t know that well.  But then, maybe that was easy.  Maybe it would be easy to get someone who didn’t matter, someone who you weren’t trying to impress and hold onto for dear life.  Someone who you didn’t want to risk losing.

           

            The metal was cool against the back of her hand as she reached into the bucket and swirled her hand around the slips of paper once, twice… On the third swirl, she finally grabbed a piece and took it out.  She held it close to her as she looked down at the name. 

            She showed it to Jorge to confirm it wasn’t her own name and then tossed it into the small fire they had burning.  She swallowed down and exhaled, wondering how the hell she was supposed to go about this.

 

            “Hey,” Newt breathed as he stumbled into the Med tent.

            “Hey there,” she smirked to the checklist.  “Right on time.”

            “What?” he panted somewhere behind her. “I’m ten minutes late.”

            She put the checklist down and turned to him. “Yeah, but that’s on time for you now.”  
  
            He stared at her for a moment and then his shoulders dropped as he exhaled. “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay,” she laughed. “I told you, I don’t care. As long as I’m not suddenly swamped with people in here bleeding from every surface, then I don’t mind the ten-minute delay.”

            “It’s not gonna happen anymore, I swear.”  
  
            She eyed him.  “Don’t blame me if I don’t believe you.”

            He shrugged, guiltily.

            “Well, anyway,” Sonya dropped the clipboard to the desk.  “Not too much going on, like I said.  I checked Colin already, he’s doing okay but no sign of change, either.  Shouldn’t be too much to worry about tonight. Just have to sit around and wait to see if people are brought in.”

            “Great,” he nodded. “So how do we pass the time?”

            Sonya snorted. “I don’t think we do.”

            “Come on there’s gotta be something we can do,” he said as he hoisted himself up on the opposite counter.

            “Like what?” Sonya looked around. “It’s not like we really have much to keep us entertained in here.”  
  
            “Well, what’d you used to do in the Spring?” he asked, picking up a scalpel and spinning it between his fingers.

            Sonya reached forward and took it from his fidgeting hands as she eyed him skeptically. “I don’t know. What’s with you today?”

            “What?” he asked.

            “You’re fidgety. And impatient.”  
  
            Newt looked at her confused for a few more seconds before he broke and laughed.  “Sorry.  I just…” he took a deep breath and then looked at her seriously.  “Thomas told me about your little… fight, I guess.”

            “Fight?” Sonya asked on a scoff. “We didn’t fight. I told him to-”

            “Whatever,” Newt said, holding up a hand.  “I just… I didn’t want you to think I was gonna come in here and hold it against you.”

            “I didn’t,” she said, folding her arms, “because I didn’t do anything wrong to hold against me in the first place.”

            Newt sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “See? This is what I mean.  You’re getting defensive.”  
  
            “Well, yeah, you’re making me feel like I need to be.”

            “You don’t.”  
  
            “I know I don’t.”

            Newt blinked at her. “Okay,” he shook his head.  “Sorry, I… I think this got warped somewhere along the way.  I didn’t want you to think I would be mad at you because I only heard Thomas’ side of the story.”  
  
            “And what was his side?”  
  
            “Sonnie, can you relax a minute?” he laughed.

            Her brow furrowed. “What did you just call me?”

            “I… Sonya.”

            “No, you didn’t.”

            Newt slid his gaze to the side trying to recall what he’d just said as if the memory just slipped from him.  “I’m sorry.”

            “Listen,” Sonya sighed. “Let’s just get through the shift.”  
  
            “I’m trying to,” Newt tilted his head. “But I think it’ll go faster if we can get through it together.  Isn’t that what you were explaining to Thomas? Teamwork and all that?”       

            Sonya dropped her arms and sighed. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

            Newt’s mouth curled in a half-smile, showing his teeth on one side. “We’re good then, yeah?”  
  
            “Sure,” she sighed.  “We’re good.”

            Newt’s eyes narrowed, but his smile stayed. “Everything alright?  I mean, you’ve never really jumped on me like that before and I’ve said some pretty questionable things, I’m sure.”

            “I don’t know,” she leaned back on the counter and folded her arms again.  “I’m just kind of caught on this mystery gift thing.”

            “Ah.”

            “I don’t know, I just… I guess it’s more difficult than I’d have thought.”  
  
            “Yeah.”

            She looked up at him. “I’m probably just stressing over this more than I should, but I can’t help it.”

            He nodded and then sat back and eyed the shelf next to him.

            “I…” she swallowed and then started again. “Did you get someone easy?”  
  
            “Hm?” he looked back at her. “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about it. Isn’t that the point?”  
  
            “Well, yeah,” Sonya shrugged. “But it’s kind of hard to just work it out on your own, don’t you think?”

            “Yeah, I suppose.”

            “Well?”

            Newt blinked.  “Well what?”  
  
            “Well, who’d you get?” she gestured to him.

            “Me?”

            “Yeah, you.”

            “Did you not just hear me?” he laughed. “We’re not supposed to say.”  
  
            “I know that, but did you not just hear me?” she shook her head. “Listen, I know it’s this big secret but you’re gonna tell me there aren’t people out there whispering to each other already?”  
  
            “You’re really bad at this,” he laughed. “Remind me not to tell you any secrets.”  
  
            “Oh come on,” she practically pleaded.

            “Who did you get if you’re so eager to tell, then?”

            Sonya bit her tongue for a moment before she spoke quietly. “I got Harriet.”

            Newt’s brows spiked. “Wow, that’s lucky.”

            “No,” Sonya laughed. “It’s really not.”

            “How in the hell do you figure that? She’s your best friend – she’s your girlfriend – you two know practically anything there is to know about each other.  I’d have killed to get Thomas,” he laughed. He cleared his throat and continued.  “Or Minho, or Fry or whoever,” he shook his head. “You know, any of them.”

            She nodded up at him. “So, who did you get?”

            His mouth quirked up. “It’s a secret.”

            “Oh, come on. I just told you.”

            “What if I had you?” he laughed. “Then what am I supposed to say?”

            “Do you?”

            “No.”

            “Okay, then it doesn’t matter.”

            “Okay,” he reasoned, “but what if I did?”

            “And what if I grew another arm? It’s not happening, so don’t worry about it.”

            He eyed her shoulder skeptically. “You’re sure? You do seem to have some weird protrusion over there.”

            She crumpled a piece of paper from the checklist and threw it at him.

            “Hey!” he laughed, swatting it away easily. “I’m only joking.”

            “Come on,” she continued. “We can help each other out with this.”

            “Jeez, you’re relentless,” he said as he slid from the counter.

            “You’re telling me you don’t want the help?” she shrugged. “Fine, work it out on your own. I hope they hate it.”

            Newt snorted as he took a few steps and picked up the crumpled paper.  He leaned over the counter and smoothed it out. He mumbled something Sonya couldn’t quite hear.

            “What?”

            “It’s Aris,” he said louder, still not turning to her.

            “You have Aris?”

            “Yes,” he turned to her, “and I’d appreciate it if you said it a bit quieter.”

            “What?” she pointed to the Colin. “Do you think he’s gonna say something to him?”

            Newt gave her a look that very simply said _don’t be a twat._

“I’m not gonna run off and tell him, don’t worry,” she said lifting her hands in innocence. “But see? I was right.”

            “You were right?” he asked, a brow quirking.

            “I can help you out. I know him better than anyone here.”

            Newt eyed her for a moment before he seemed to give in.  “Alright, fine.  It’s a deal.  Though, I have no idea how I’m supposed to help you.”

            “Easy,” she shrugged and picked at her nails. “Just act like you have Thomas.” She slowly lifted her gaze from her nails and looked up at him.

            He blinked at her.

            “One day, you’ll talk to me,” she rolled her eyes and turned back to the checklist she’d abandoned.

            He walked up next to her and placed the wrinkled sheet of paper back on the pile she sifted through. “One day, you’ll let it go.”

            “One day, you’ll show up to work on time.”

            “One day, you’ll…”

            She looked up at him. “I’ll what?”

            “You’ll…” he seemed to struggle.

            She snorted.

            “You’re so annoying,” he laughed and shook his head.

            “Only trying to help,” she shrugged. “You’re the annoying one who won’t just admit how he feels.”

            “Listen, whatever is between Thomas and I is our own business.”

            “A-ha!” she turned and leaned a hip on the counter. “So, there _is_ something between you two.”

            “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Newt pushed off from the counter and grabbed the basket of sheets in the corner.  “I’m going to wash these.”

            “They’re already clean,” Sonya furrowed her brow.

            “Then I’ll wash them again,” he made a face as he shouldered his way through the tent.

            “Say hi to Thomas!” she called after him.

           


	6. Day 48

_Day 48 –_

_Missed yesterday. Frustrating. I don’t even have an excuse. I just woke up and started getting ready for the Project.  It’s got my head screwed on backwards.  Last night I dreamt about marinating wheat. In short, we started on the next stage of this project. We’re still working on the wreaths, but anyone who’s finished theirs has moved on to start helping out with the next bit.  Which means me, Emma, Gally and Thomas.  Apparently, we’re the only ones who want to get this done with._

_Anyway, we’re meant to be putting together a recipe to share with everyone at the Bonfire. I suggested the Sweet Bread, but I have no idea how that was ever made. Gally had an idea, though I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be exactly. Just that we had to collect wheat and_

 

 

Sonya shut her notebook and looked up as Harriet stepped into the tent.  Their eyes met briefly and dropped again before Harriet turned to hang the damp towel on the branch they’ve shoved into the sand.

            Sonya slowly opened her notebook again and curled her shoulders in on herself as she wrote.

 

 

 

 

            _Harriet and I got into another fight this morning.  It wasn’t even a fight, really. It was just… it was nothing. We just… haven’t spoken this morning.  Just weird smiles and shuffling around each other like one of us is going to explode at any minute.  I wish I understood.  This makes everything ten times harder, of course, considering this gift exchange._

_I have no idea what to get her. Today’s an off day at least, so I have time to head off on my own and try to figure it out.  Maybe I can steal Newt away for a bit to help bounce ideas off of._

 

 

The wind picked up again overnight and the morning’s breeze was cool around Sonya as she pulled her jacket a bit tighter.  The Safe Haven was pretty quiet, given it was an off day again.  The only movement that caught her eye was Brenda taking off on her run. 

            She scanned everyone who was awake, but there was no sign of Newt.  The only faces she really recognized were Minho and Gally eating together on their own, Teresa by herself in the corner, and Aaron and Jasmine sitting off on the side whispering.

            Sonya shoved her hands deeper in her pockets and wondered if it would be best to just hang in her tent instead and out of the wind.  She turned back to look at it and saw the shadow moving around inside. Maybe she could go call for Newt as his tent instead.  She really needed to sort out the gift situation. 

            She turned to look over at the tent that usually housed that group of boys and breathed a small side of relief as Thomas left – which meant Newt was likely in there alone.  She started moving toward it, nodded a greeting to Thomas and waited a bit for him to settle next to Minho, taking Gally’s place as he got up and walked off toward the woods.

            She walked up closer to the tent and called in.  “Newt?”

            “Sonya?”

            “Yeah, can I come in?”

            She heard a muffled curse and shuffling about suddenly before he responded. “One minute!”

            A sudden jolt of realization struck Sonya and she turned to look across the beach to where Thomas was now next to Minho stretching his arms back.  “Oh my god.”

            “Hey,” Newt exhaled suddenly next to her.

            She dropped her gaze and turned to face him, but couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. “Um, hi.”

            “What’s up?”  
  
            “Nothing, um, I…” her words trailed off as her eyes scanned the ground.  “I just remembered… I forgot… Colin.”

            “What?” Newt asked suddenly serious.  “Is he okay? What happened?”

            “Yeah, he’s fine, I just haven’t checked him. I’ll be back.” She turned to leave, but Newt’s hand wrapped around her arm.

            “Sonya, what happened?”  
  
            She finally brought her eyes up to his, noted the concern and confusion in them.  “Nothing, I-”

            “Sonya, words!”

            She sighed and felt her shoulders drop.  She felt guilty for making him panic over Colin but, what else was she supposed to say? “I’m sorry, he’s fine. Nothing’s wrong with him.”  
  
            “Then what is it?”

            She dropped her gaze. “I was just coming here to ask for help with the gift exchange.”

            “Oh,” Newt exhaled on the tail of a laugh and dropped his grip from her arm in favor of running his hand through his hair.  “Hell, you scared the life out of me. I thought something happened.”  
  
            “Sorry,” she laughed and chanced a look back up at him.

            “Why didn’t you just say that?”  
  
            “Well,” she turned and looked back at Thomas before she met Newt’s gaze again.  “I didn’t know if… I mean Thomas just left. And then you were… I don’t know… you sounded out of breath.” For a moment, Sonya wondered if she was going to be sick.

            “What?” Newt’s head tilted briefly and then his eyes widened.  “Oh.”

            Sonya squinted out against the gray sky in the awkward silence.

            “Oh,” Newt repeated. “Oh god.”

            “Please stop saying that.”

            “No, I – Sonya, _no._ ”

            Sonya continued to blink against the sky, trying to look anywhere except him.

            “Bloody hell, no. Just… nothing happened, nothing… no.”

            She finally brought her gaze down to meet his and found his cheeks tinged with a deep red and horror all over his face.

            “Listen,” he said, eyes still wide, “can we just… start over and forget that theory completely?”  
  
            “Please.”

            “Thank you.” Newt exhaled a deep breath.  “Do you wanna come in?”

            Sonya blinked.

            “Sonya,” he warned.

            “Sure,” she nodded.

            He mumbled something else has he pulled the tent flaps back and let her in.

            The boys had a bit of a larger tent than she and Harriet.  It was nothing massive, but due to low supplies, people were encouraged to bunk up with each other to make sure everyone fit accordingly.  The four boys – Newt, Thomas, Frypan and Minho – ended up bunking together, so there were four hammocks strung up in each corner of the tent. 

            Her eyes drifted to the corners and immediately found which one Newt’s must be.  In the far left was a hammock hung above two small crates. One had a towel neatly wrapped around it, the other was open and filed with neatly folded clothing.  Next to the hammock was an upturned crate with a small lantern and a few stray pencils.

            Newt collected something from beneath the blanket in his hammock and rustled papers around.

            “What’s that?” Sonya asked.

            “Nothing, it’s just something I was working on.”

            “Gift for Aris?” she asked.

            “No.”

            Sonya raised a brow at the back of his head.

            “It’s just something I do on my own.”  He turned and Sonya’s gaze fell on the tattered leather notebook in his hands.

            “You write?” she asked.

            “No,” he shook his head.  “It’s drawings.”

            “Drawings?”

            “Yeah, just,” he shrugged as he collected the pencils.  “I just do it as a way of not forgetting.”  
  
            Sonya couldn’t help the smile that curled on her face.  “I get that.”

            Newt nodded down at the book before he crouched and tucked it away in the covered crate below the hammock.

            “I write,” Sonya continued.

            He turned then and looked at her over his shoulder. “You do?”  
  
            “Yeah,” Sonya shrugged.  “I started a few days after we arrived here.  I just…”

            “You’re afraid of forgetting.”

            She held his gaze for a minute and then nodded.

            “Yeah, I get that,” he said, a small laugh behind his words.

            She swallowed a question down as he stood up. 

            “So,” he said a bit louder.  “Gift exchange. How can I be of assistance?”

            Sonya shook her head. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

            “She’s your girlfriend and you’re asking me where to begin?”  
  
            “Hey,” Sonya snapped, turning to wander around the tent. “It’s harder than you think.  You have it lucky.”

            Newt raised a brow and folded his arms in front of him.  “Remind me again how having someone I know little to nothing about is easy?”

            Sonya stopped at one of the upturned crates and scanned the messy contents.  “If you don’t know them, you’re off the hook. You’re not expected to get it right.” She picked up a small wooden figurine.  “There’s just more pressure this way.  It’s like a test of _how well do I know my girlfriend_.  I just wish I had someone like Frypan,” she waved the figurine as she turned and found Newt walking over to her, mouth in a line and eyes dark.

            He took the little wooden toy from her as he answered.  “That’s Thomas’, first of all.”

            “Oh. See?”

            “And second,” he said, placing it gently back against the lantern on Thomas’ crate, “she’s your girlfriend – she’s going to love whatever you give her, regardless.”

            “That’s not the point, Newt,” she said as he turned away.  “I don’t want her to like it out of obligation, I want her to like it because it means something to her.”

            “Wouldn’t getting it from you mean something to her?”

            Sonya sighed. “I don’t know why I bothered coming to you.”

            “Me neither,” he laughed.

            “Well, what would you get Thomas?”

            Newt froze and turned back to face her, brow raised.  “Really? We’re going there again?”

            Sonya pressed her mouth shut to keep the laugh inside.

            Despite himself, Newt’s mouth curled up into a smirk. “Alright,” he sighed. He gestured to Sonya and dropped his hand back to his side.  “What does she like?”

            Sonya chewed her lip and ran a hand through her hair.  “I don’t know. I have no idea.  It’s like suddenly everything I’ve ever known about her has disappeared. Ripped from memory.” She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh my god. That’s it.”

            He raised a brow.

            “This is it,” she dropped her hands to her side.  “It’s happening again. Someone swiped our memories.”

            “Alright, okay, calm down,” Newt stepped forward, laughing and braced his hands on her shoulders.

            “I hate this,” she sighed. She didn’t care if she sounded weak or like a child.  Something made her feel comfortable with Newt, like she was able to feel young again, like the kid she never got to be.

            Newt looked around the tent and then sighed. “Okay, why don’t we go for a walk.  Maybe some fresh air will help.”  
  
            “You think so?”

            “Honestly, I have no idea. But I’m hungry so we need to leave anyway.”

            Sonya snorted. “As long as you help me with this, I don’t care how many times you eat.”

 

 

            She followed him out into the cool morning and over to the food line.  After Newt collected his plate and scarfed down all of it while standing up (“Are you even chewing?”), they started to make their way toward the forest line.

            Raised voices caught Sonya’s attention before Newt even grabbed her wrist.  Her eyes shot up and she turned toward the noise to see someone yelling down into Teresa’s face. She felt Newt take half a step forward as her eyes followed Thomas who stood and started storming across the beach, calling Aaron off.

            But then a blur ran past Sonya and Newt and sprinted down the beach.

            Sonya watched as Alyx, the new cook, pushed Thomas aside, stormed the rest of the way to close the distance and then swung forward, her fist making direct contact with Aaron’s face.

            “Oh my god,” Sonya flinched back.

            Aaron stumbled back clutched his cheek in shock. 

            Alyx looked back down at Teresa and extended a hand to her to help her up.  Teresa eyed her hand and then her before she let her pull her to stand.

            “Are you okay?” Alyx asked.

            “Yeah,” Teresa exhaled.

            “Good,” Alyx nodded and then, with one step, she closed the distance between herself and Teresa in a deep kiss.

            “Wow,” Sonya said, brows springing up.  “That was… unexpected.” She let out a small laugh and looked up at Newt – but there was something different on his face, almost like longing.  She turned and followed his gaze to Thomas who stood off to the side with Minho looking on in an amused sort of surprise.

            Newt’s hand dropped from her wrist as he turned away.  “Come on, we should figure this out.”

 

            The woods were a bit easier to navigate than they were at the beginning of their stay here.  Paths had been made by clearing stray branches and stones by those who used them to run.  Sonya followed Newt in heavy, waiting silence.  She chanced a glance up at him once or twice, but his focus was set somewhere she couldn’t see, brows furrowed and mouth in a line.

            So, she stayed quiet and let him think.  Waited for him to speak.

 

            It was nearly ten minutes later when he finally did.

            “It’s just…” he shook his head, “I’ve known Thomas for almost a year now, you know?”

            Sonya nodded as he spoke as if they were continuing whatever conversation he was having in his head.

            “I mean, that’s almost a quarter of my life, if you really think about it.  From what I can remember, anyway.  And that’s practically _his_ entire life.  We’ve been together his entire life.  Not _together_ , obviously. But you know what I mean.”

            Sonya nodded again in the small pause and continued following him as he walked on.

            “I mean, we’ve trusted each other with everything, with our _lives_.  That’s not just something you can push aside and risk.”

            She glanced up at him as he slowed to a stop.

            “I just don’t want to ruin anything, you know?”  He turned to face her now, frustration lacing his features.

            Sonya waited a moment for him to go on.  When he didn’t, she spoke. “Do you really think it would?”

            “I don’t know,” he sighed, pushing his hands into his pockets as he stared up at the trees in thought.  “Maybe? It’s like… we’re in this really good place right now.  We trust each other, we talk to each other, we can joke around, we can work through arguments if we get into them and what if I say something or do something and ruin that?”  He looked at her again. “I mean you and Harriet got together when you first met, basically. Right?”

            “Yeah,” she nodded, a bit surprised he remembered the small detail she tossed out probably weeks ago.

            “Yeah so, you grew together.”

            She furrowed her brows.  “How is it different?”

            “Because she was a stranger then,” he shrugged. “There was nothing to lose if she said no to you.  You know? I mean I could walk up to any other guy here and try to talk to them and get together and if they say no, it doesn’t matter.  But Thomas…” he words trailed off as he leaned back on a tree and shook his head. “It’s different.”

            Sonya couldn’t help the way her mouth twisted into a smile then as she stared at him.

            “What?” he asked.

            “Nothing,” she shrugged, knowing the lilt in her voice gave her away.

            “What,” he said, more than asked this time.

            “It’s just that, you’re basically saying I was right, before.  About what I said about how giving a gift to a stranger is easier than someone you know.”  To her relief, his features brightened as he worked to keep his face straight.

            “Really?” he asked, smiling around the word.  “That’s what you’re focusing on here?”  
  
            Sonya laughed fully now.  “I’m just saying, now you see what I mean.  Strangers are easier.”  
  
            He shook his head, but his smile stayed.  “Alright,” he sighed as he folded his arms.  “So what ideas do you have for her for now?”

            “No,” she shook her head, “let’s talk about Thomas.”

            “No, we’re not discussing Thomas.”

            “We just were.”

            “We’re not discussing it.”  
  
            “Fine, whatever,” she tossed her hands up.  “Don’t get help from the person who’s actually in a relationship.”

            “Yeah,” Newt laughed, “and doesn’t even know what to get said girlfriend as a present.”  
  
            “You know, I really don’t know why I came to you for help.”

            He shrugged, smile still on his face. “Me neither.”

            Sonya rolled her eyes and dropped her gaze to the floor as she kicked a few twigs out of the way.  “Aris likes puzzles, by the way,” she said flatly, looking up at him.

            His brows furrowed.  “What?”

            “Puzzles,” she repeated. “Like, figuring things out.  Games and codes and things.”

            Newt’s eyes shifted to the side in confusion and then back to her.  “O..kay..”

            “Well, if you’re not gonna let me help you with Thomas, I can at least help you with your gift!” she said.

            He blinked.  “Don’t worry about Aris.”

            “You’ve figured out the gift already?”  
  
            “No, but I’ll think of something.”

            “Like what?”  
  
            “Something.”

            “Something like what?”  
  
            “Bloody hell, Sonya, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out!”

            Sonya stared at him beneath lowered brows.  “He’s my best friend, Newt. Don’t just give him something stupid.  He deserves a good gift.”

            “I’ll figure it out,” Newt groaned, leaning his head back.

            “He was tortured at WCKD, he doesn’t deserve-”

            “Oh my god, would you drop it?” Newt looked back down at her.  “I’ve got a week and a half.  I’ll get him something good, don’t worry.”

            “Do you have to be so careless about this?”

            “Do you have to be so annoying about this?”

            Sonya blinked at him in shock.

            His eyes closed and he tilted his head as if he’d just realized what he said.  He looked back at her.  “I’m sorry.  Uncalled for.”

            “Yeah, it was,” she turned and started walking up the path again.

            “Sonnie, I’m sorry.”

            She heard footsteps behind her that let her know he was following her.

            “Sonnie-”

            “Listen,” she said, spinning on the spot to face him, “just because you’d rather hide your feelings and take the easy way out doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.  Some of us actually want to make the most of our lives.  You know, since we have them now.”

            Newt flinched just slightly, but sincerity coated his words when he spoke.  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

            She watched him for another moment in silence.

            “Thank you for trying to help,” he added, quietly.  “But I just like to work things out for myself. On my own.”

            “That’s all you had to say,” Sonya said.

            Newt shrugged.  “You were pretty adamant about helping me with something.  I would’ve felt bad telling you not to.”  
  
            She rolled her eyes, but the anger had faded.

            “Are we okay?” he asked.

            “Yeah,” she shrugged.  “Yeah, we’re fine.”  
  
            He smiled up at her in a way that said he clearly didn’t believe her.

            “We’re fine,” she repeated.  “Just stop being such an ass.” She turned and started walking up the path again.

            “You know,” he said over his own footsteps. “Nobody is ever this mean to me.”

            “Yeah, well maybe they should be,” she shot back through a smile. She heard a small laugh in response.

            They walked for another few minutes in silence before Newt spoke up again.  “So, what sort of things does Harriet like?”

            Sonya shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

            “Okay, hey. Hey!” Newt’s footsteps quickened and then his hand was around her arm stopping her from walking.  “Will you let me try to help you?”

            Sonya sighed.  “Sorry.”

            “It’s okay,” he laughed.  “Think.  What does she like to do?” He nodded forward and started walking side by side with her now.

            Sonya shoved her hands in her pockets and considered the question.  “I don’t know.  I mean, she’s good with a shotgun but I’m not gonna give her one of those.”

            “Thank god,” Newt mumbled.

            She shoved an elbow into his ribs as he laughed. 

            “Do you have ideas of what to get her?”

            “I thought about writing her a letter-”

            “No.”

            She looked up him.  “No?”  
  
            “No,” he said, mouth set in a line.  “Letters are for goodbyes.”

            “You really think that?”

            “What other ideas do you have?”

            Sonya looked back down at the path.  “I thought about making her a scarf.  I’ve gotten pretty good at that.”  Newt stopped walking then and Sonya turned to face him.  “What?”

            Newt blinked at her.  “Is she usually particularly cold?  Does she complain about it a lot?”

            “No,” Sonya shrugged.

            “So why would you give her a scarf? I wouldn’t give Aris a pencil just because I’m good at drawing.”

            “You’re being an ass again.”

            Newt held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.  It’s just that…” he looked around for the words.  “You make this big deal about getting her the perfect gift – something that will mean something to her.  I just don’t think a scarf is gonna mean all that much.”

            “Well, I don’t know,” Sonya dropped her arms to her side.  “I have no idea what I’m doing – oh my god, you’re right. I know nothing about my own girlfriend.”

            “Okay, okay, calm down,” Newt laughed.  “You know plenty.  You just need to stop freaking out so much and think.  She likes you, right?”  
  
            “Not if I give her a scarf apparently.”

            “Oh my god, would you drop the scarf and let me help you?”

            “Are you actually going to help?”

            “Are you going to let me try?”  
  
            Sonya stared him down for a minute before she finally gestured for him to speak.

            “You like writing.  What does she like?  What does she do while you’re writing?”

            Sonya pushed her hands into her pockets again and leaned back on a tree.  She shook her head at the ground.  “I’m not sure.  I usually do it when she’s not around.  Like if she goes to get food or wash up or something.  I don’t think she likes that I write, honestly.”

            “What?”

            “I don’t know.  I just think it bothers her.”  
  
            “Why would it bother her?”

            Sonya took a breath and looked across the path at him.  “It’s like your drawings, right?  You do it to remember?”  
  
            Newt nodded.

            “Yeah, well.  That’s why I write.  And I don’t think she likes that I want to remember so badly.”

            His brows furrowed.  “Why wouldn’t she like that?”  
  
            “I just think she’d rather forget.  She doesn’t want to think about the Spring and the Shades.  She still feels guilty for me and Aris getting captured and I just think she’d rather forget that and move forward.  But I’m not like that, you know?  I think it’s important to remember how we got here.  And,” she took a deep breath and considered her words.  “When we were taken by WCKD, we were drugged nearly every day.  We were wired up and forced to live these simulations of our biggest fears and after a while, it sort of got hard to tell what was real and what was hallucination.” She looked back up at him.

            His eyes were dark as he nodded, barely perceptible.

            “Yeah,” Sonya nodded.  “It happened to Minho, too.  I’m sure he’s talked about it.”  
  
            Newt looked at her for a moment before he blinked away.  Something changed in his features as he nodded again.  “Yeah, yeah of course.”

            “Yeah, so,” Sonya shrugged.  “It just made sense for me to start writing things down.  Almost a way to remember what really happened and what didn’t.”

            “And you don’t think she likes that?”  
  
            “Like I said, I think she’d rather forget.”

            Newt shifted his stance and stared up at the tops of the trees, searching for something.  “Alright, so forget everything about the Glade.  Spring – whatever.” He looked back down at her.  “Give her something that could be part of this new life here.  Something about the Haven, maybe.  What does she like to do here?”

            Sonya shrugged. “Well, she’s a hunter with Thomas.”

            “No, no,” he shook his head. “Nothing work related – you wouldn’t want someone giving you a case of bandages, would you?”

            “No,” she laughed.

            “Exactly.  So, start seeing what she does in her spare time – maybe when you’re not around.  When you’re writing, figure out what she’s doing.”

            Sonya nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.  It’s probably best to give her something new from here.  Something that has a hint of a future instead of the past.” After another minute, she looked up at him.  “You’re good at this, you know.  Better than you give yourself credit for.”  
  
            “Yeah, you’ll find that’s a recurring theme with me,” he said, watching the trees.

            Sonya furrowed her brows and considered him for a moment.

            “Come on,” he said suddenly, pushing off of the tree.  “We should probably get back before the sun sets.”

            “Yeah,” she agreed, glancing at the sky.  “I really don’t fancy walking home in the dark.”

            He looked down at her as a confused sort of smile appeared on his face.

            “What?” she asked.

            “What’d you just say?”  
  
            “That I don’t wanna be stuck out here in the dark?”

            His face stayed in that bizarre look.

            “What?” Sonya repeated.

            “Nothing,” he said, smirk growing a bit wider.  He turned and started walking back.

            Sonya looked around her as if the trees would give her some sort of answer.  “Why are you being weird?”

            “I’m not,” he laughed.

            “Are you laughing at me because I don’t wanna be out here in the creepy woods at night?”

            “Yeah,” he nodded through his smile, but something in it told her it was a lie.

            “You’re so annoying.”  
  
            “Aren’t I?”

            She looked back up at him.

            “Race back to camp?” he said down to her, and suddenly he was running.

            “What the-?” she gaped at him.  “Newt!  Newt, that’s not-!  That’s not fair!” She pushed off the ground and sprinted down the way after him.  The wind rushed past her as she wound in and out of the runner’s path and soon he was back in her sights, running in his odd tilted way.  She pushed faster and as she overtook him and sprinted past, she smiled to herself at the sound of his laugh.

            It was only a bit further, her boots pounding into the dirt path and hair whipping around her that she saw the break in the trees that lead to the beach.  The dirt below started to mix with sand and soon she was sliding into the sand, slowing down and catching her breath.  She turned to look back into the trees, but Newt was nowhere to be found.  “I win!” She shouted back, breathless.  She watched the wood, eyes darting between the trees. She knew she couldn’t have been that far ahead of him, but she suddenly thought of his leg – and the injury he’d gotten sometime before she knew him. “Newt?” she called into the trees.  Her smile faded as her breathing began to even out.  “Newt!”  There was a bit of movement and she took a few steps back toward the woods to look in. 

            Newt moved a low hanging branch out of the way and ducked below it as he walked down the path into view. 

            Sonya’s shoulders dropped in relief and she allowed herself a smile.  “Are you really that slow?”

            “No,” he shrugged.  “I stopped running about a quarter of a mile back.”

            Sonya gaped and tossed her arms in the air.  “Well you could’ve said something!”

            He smiled down at her as he reached her.  “It was funnier this way.”

            “Annoying,” she groaned shoving him playfully.

            His laugh cracked loudly as he stumbled to the side.  He looked up across the beach and nodded forward then.  “You should get started on your homework.”  
  
            Sonya followed his gaze to find Harriet heading back toward their tent. She nodded.  “Yeah, might as well.”

            “Good luck,” he said as he walked off to the side toward his friends.

            She took a few steps toward the tent before she stopped and turned back.  “Hey Newt?”  
  
            “Hm?”  
  
            She squinted back at him as he stood with a raised brow.  “Thanks.”

            He watched her for a minute before he smiled and nodded. “Of course.” He turned and continued on his way.

            Sonya looked back over at her tent and took a deep breath.  Before she started figuring out what Harriet did when she wasn’t around, there was something else she needed to sort out.  And the hopeful feeling in her chest told her that tonight might be the perfect night for it.

 

            Sonya pushed back the flaps of the tent and tried to steady her nerves. Her eyes snagged on Harriet standing in the corner organizing a few belongings. Sonya cleared her throat before she stepped further into the space. 

            Harriet turned just slightly, glancing over her shoulder before turning back to her project.

            “Hey,” Sonya said quietly.

            “Hey.”

            She swallowed and tried to steady her nerves.  “Hey, can we talk?”

            Harriet’s movements stuttered just slightly before stopping completely.  She turned to look back at Sonya.  “Yeah, is everything okay?”  
  
            Sonya scratched a bit at her neck and considered the question. “I just think we should talk about something.” She fought against the shame in her chest that grew at the sound of her shaking voice.  
  
            Harriet’s brows furrowed but she nodded and stepped closer to Sonya.  “Do you wanna sit?”

            “Sure,” she nodded and followed Harriet to the edge of their bed.

            “What’s going on?”

            Sonya took a shaking breath and exhaled.  She briefly considered backtracking – putting this off for another day, but the bigger part of her knew that it had to be done.  So, she inhaled once more and began.  
  
            “I lost track of how many times I saw you die.”

            Harriet shifted next to her.  “What?”

            “At WCKD.  Every morning, they’d drug us with the food.  They’d drag us down the hall and when we woke up we’d be strapped to these chairs with wires and needles and tubes sticking in and out of us everywhere.  The drug would make us hallucinate – in the beginning, anyway.  They couldn’t control what we saw, we just saw things.  But it was meant to make us afraid, paranoid.  I saw Shades, I saw Beth dying, I saw that Crank in the Scorch who almost got me.”  Sonya swallowed in the pause.  “And I saw you.”

            Harriet’s hand grazed softly down Sonya’s spine.

            “I saw you being tortured, captured by WCKD, attacked by Cranks.  I saw all of it.  And it got to a point where I didn’t need the drugs anymore.  I was convinced you were gone.  It’d been…” she trailed off, trying to think.  “It’d been however many weeks at that point.  I thought maybe you had…”

            “You thought I left you behind?”  
  
            “Maybe,” Sonya shrugged.  “Or worse.”

            “I would never.”

            “I know that now,” Sonya insisted. “But it was so hard then.  It just felt so bleak and hopeless.  Minho kept telling me you were okay, that you were with Thomas.  You were safe.  But after a while, even he started to lose hope.  He didn’t say anything, but I could see it on his face. He became like the rest of us, regardless of how much he kept fighting back.”  She cleared her throat.  “Anyway, it went on every day.  More hallucinations, more fears.  I couldn’t tell what was real anymore, what wasn’t. Sometimes I’d have a whole conversation with Aris only to realize he hadn’t even been in the room with me.”  
  
            Harriet’s hand tightened around Sonya’s waist.

            “Anyway,” Sonya sniffed and couldn’t remember when she started crying.  Still, she continued. She needed to get this out.  She focused on the sand below and steeled herself. “I know you hate to remember.  I know that you don’t want anything to do with The Spring anymore, the Shades, any of that. I get it.”  She looked up at Harriet and blinked away the blurred edges threatening her vision.  “But I need you to understand why I have to remember.”

            Harriet nodded, but didn’t speak.  She only watched her.

            “I need you to understand that without my memories, I have no grounding of what is real and what isn’t.  There are days that I can’t remember what happened and what didn’t.  Days when I look at you and can’t tell if you’re really in front of me or not.”  She swallowed against the crack in her voice.  “So, I have to keep writing.  And I’m sorry if you hate remembering but it’s the only way I know how to keep living.”  
  
            Harriet nodded again, eyes set on Sonya’s.

            Sonya exhaled a shuddered breath in the silence as Harriet’s fingers continued running soothing lines up and down her side.

            “Can I say something?” Harriet asked quietly.

            “Of course,” Sonya sniffed.

            “You’re right – about me not wanting to remember.  I don’t want to keep replaying moments in my head.  Beth, Ximena’s hand slipping from mine, losing you and Aris for six months when I had no idea if either of you would even be there when we found you all.”  She lifted her hand and tucked some stray strands of hair behind Sonya’s ear.  “But that doesn’t mean you have to push it all away too.  We heal in different ways, Sonya.  I’m not going to be mad at you for finding something that works.  You never have to apologize for the way you cope.  Ever.  And if I ever made you feel otherwise, then I’m sorry.”

            “No, no,” Sonya shook her head.  “It was nothing you did.  I just… I don’t know.”

            Harriet’s mouth quirked up in the smallest of smiles.  “Hey, do you remember what I told you all those months ago when we got out of the Spring?  When it was just the two of us and you said we were alone?”  
  
            Sonya let out a small laugh.  “You said _we’re never alone, as long as we’re together._ ”

            Harriet smiled and re-tucked the hair behind Sonya’s ear.  “It still rings true now.  You and I: we stick together.  Always.”

            Sonya nodded through another laugh as she looked up at Harriet.  “I know.”

            “I’m not going anywhere,” Harriet said, bringing both hands up to Sonya’s face.  “Only if you ask.”  
  
            “I never would,” Sonya shook her head.

            Harriet leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Sonya’s. “Thank you.”

            “Of course.”

            “No,” Harriet said as she pulled away just slightly.  “Thank you for sharing this with me. I know it probably takes a lot from you to talk about.  I will never know what you went through there, how it felt to live through those fears every day, but I will help you get through it now however I can.”  
  
            Sonya flicked her gaze between Harriet’s eyes, racked her brain for the right words – any words.  Her hand reacted first and she reached up to Harriet’s shirt and tugged her forward.  In the closed gap, they met with promises.  Sonya exhaled for the first time she could remember and suddenly it felt like memories.  It felt like The Spring and it felt like cool nights wrapped in furs and curled up in front of fires.  It felt like quiet laughter in snowfall and tumbling and tangling on ice together. But above this – above all of this – it felt real.

 


	7. Day 52

_Day 52 –_

_Wow I’m behind.  This week has been so busy. There’s only one week left until the Haven’s Bonfire and Ruby has been working us to our cores._

_Things with Harriet have been amazing since we talked.  She’s curled up next to me now as I write – even asked about it yesterday.  It’s better now that I can talk to her about things, about when I’m afraid or unsure of what’s around me.  She’s so good at being patient with me.  She insists she’s not being “patient” and she’s just doing what anyone would do for someone they care about, but it’s patience._

_Other than that, things have been going well.  We’ve been working on the last of this brew that Gally insisted on us making.  Frypan swears by it.  Thomas warned me that it was the worst thing he’s ever had, but he also seemed to back it.  Honestly, I think it’s because Newt liked it.  I’m excited to try it when it’s done._

_That’s been going well, surprisingly.  I never thought I’d see the day Gally and Aaron agreed on something, but Aaron was completely on board for this brew. It’s scary how similar they are, actually.  I feel a bit bad for Thomas, since he’s always caught in the middle, but I guess it’s better than the alternative._

_And that being said I need to go now before I’m late. I’ll try to snag time tomorrow to write again._

 

 

 

“No, put the damn corn in the _water_ , Thomas. Fuck! How many times do I have to say it?”

            “But there’s no sugar,” Thomas insisted, waving a container of corn around.

            “I’m gonna lose my mind,” Gally sighed, tossing the wooden spoon on the counter.

            Sonya laughed from her perch on the stool where she sat pulling sprouts from the ends of the kernels.  They’d been soaking corn kernels for a little over a week now and between Thomas being distracted and Gally screaming orders, the whole process was a disaster.  Still, Sonya had to admit that it was the most fun she’d had in a while.

            “This is what makes the sugar, dumbass,” Aaron said, bringing another bucket of cold water to Thomas. 

            “Thank you,” Gally gestured to Aaron. 

            “No, no,” Thomas waved the container of corn at them both.  “What’d we say? No teaming up.”

            Sonya glanced up at Aaron and Gally to see them level a stare at each other.

            “Aaron, move,” Emma walked past him with another bucket of corn to de-sprout.

            Sonya groaned at the sight of it.

            “Don’t worry, I’m gonna help you,” Emma laughed.

            “Thank god, cuz I wasn’t,” Aaron said as he shifted away.

            “Oi, back here!” Gally called out to him.  “You still owe me two buckets of water.”  
  
            “And if I don’t?”

            “Are we really going through this again?”  
  
            Thomas snorted.

            Aaron made a rude gesture to Thomas and turned to Gally.  “I could have kicked your ass in that ring and you know it.”  
  
            “No, I don’t know it,” Gally said as he leaned on the counter, “because you didn’t.”

            “We’re rematching tomorrow.”  
  
            “Oh goody, we’re still talking about the match?” Jonah said, slumping down in the seat next to Sonya.

            “Whatever,” Aaron shrugged.  “Still kicked Tommy’s ass.”  
  
            Sonya glanced up at Thomas to see him turn away and busy himself with the corn.  She looked up and met Jonah’s gaze and then shifted to Gally.

            Gally shrugged. “He’ll learn his lesson when Newt kicks his ass, too.”

            “I thought Newt didn’t fight,” Sonya chirped up.

            “He says that,” Gally laughed.

            Thomas turned back to the table. “I never saw him fight in the Glade.”

            “Cuz he was too busy bringing you on a tour and then I had to kick _your_ ass instead.”  
  
            “Oh, you kicked my ass? Is that how you remember it?”

            “Do you guys do anything else?” Emma asked looking at Gally, Thomas and Aaron. “Or do you just bicker and fight all the time?  I’m starting to wish you three never became friends.”

            “We’re not friends,” they said nearly in unison.

            “Convincing,” Sonya snorted.

            “When are you gonna get in the ring?” Thomas nudged her with his elbow.

            “Uh, no thank you,” Sonya said. “I’m barely content to watch.”  
  
            “Yeah, yeah, we’ll see.”

 

            When the corn was crushed and settling in the boiling water, the group was finally able to disperse for the night and get dinner. They grouped around with the others quickly and shared updates on all of their projects.

            “How’s everyone been doing with their gifts?” Frypan asked after a while.

            The group was silent as everyone glanced around.

            “Well, I’m almost done,” Jonah shrugged.

            “Yeah, I’ve only got a bit left to do,” Aaron added.

            “I thought you just said last night that you had no idea what to do?” Jasmine asked.

            Aaron shrugged. “Figured it out.”  
  
            “I have not even started,” Thomas shook his head at his tray.

            Sonya breathed a small sigh of relief at the fact that she wasn’t the only one who was behind.

            “I have an idea,” Newt shrugged. “But nothing solid yet.”

            Her eyes found him immediately as he shifted the food around on his tray.  The last they’d spoken, he’d mentioned making a puzzle book for Aris.  She wondered if he was still considering it.  She’d have to steal him to the side later and sort that out.

            “Am I the only one who’s done, then?” Harriet asked, looking around the circle.

            Sonya’s stomach dropped.

            “You’re done?” Newt asked.

            “Yeah,” she shrugged. “It was pretty easy.”

            Sonya blinked over at Newt, who blinked back at her.  Yes – they’d definitely need to discuss soon.

            Minho pushed himself up to stand. “Well, I’m going to bed. I need to be up early.”

            “What time are you going running tomorrow?” Jasmine asked.

            He furrowed his brows down at her.  “Early.”

            “Well, yeah, asshole.  How early?”  
  
            Minho blinked.  “Dawn.”  
  
            “Okay.”  
  
            Minho shifted his gaze around the circle before he walked off to the tent.

            “Okay,” Aaron said turning to her.  “What the hell was that about?”  
  
            “What?” Jasmine shrugged at her food.

            Sonya met Newt’s eyes across the awkward tension filling the circle.  She raised a brow at him but he simply shrugged.


	8. Day 54

_Day 54 –_

_I swear I’m not skipping days on purpose.  Yesterday was an off day so Harriet and I spent most of the morning relaxing and talking before we even went out for breakfast._

_One development that did happen yesterday was seeing Jasmine come back from a run with Minho.  I asked Newt about it but he said he had no idea and had to run off to work on Aris’ gift.  It_ is _a puzzle book, by the way._

_I tried to talk to Minho about it around lunch but he swore he had no idea what I was talking about.  I guess it’s nice, though.  Everyone seems to have been getting along a bit better, even if it’s not all the time.  Maybe Vince was right.  Maybe this is exactly what our Haven needed._

 

 

            “Hey,” Newt exhaled as he jogged through the Med Tent. 

            Sonya turned and smiled a greeting at him.

            “Sorry,” he shook his head and pointed over his shoulder.  “Emma was asking me something about… something.”

            Sonya tilted her head

            Newt shrugged and dropped his arms. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m the one to go to about their mystery gifts.  Am I the only one who actually wants to keep them a secret?”

            Sonya laughed and turned back to the checklist, marking off the last box.  “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the only thing left is washing the sheets and we’re actually all caught up.  Nothing has been used so it doesn’t need sterilizing and organizing.” She shrugged.

            “Yes,” Newt nodded. “Because laundry makes me happy.”  
  
            Sonya smiled. “At least if someone comes up to me asking what to get you I’ll know.”

            He lowered a brow.

            “Dirty laundry.”  
  
            Newt’s mouth curled up as he continued catching his breath.  “You’re a nuisance.”  
  
            “Says the one who’s always late.”

            He nodded at her as he leaned on the opposite counter.  “Have you figured out what to do for Harriet yet?”

            Sonya shifted and dropped her gaze.  “Not… just yet.”  
  
            “Sonnie…”

            “I know! I know.”

            “You know it’s under a week now, right?”

            “Yes, Newt!” she yelled louder than necessary.  “I know that! Don’t you think I know that?”

            “Well, what does she do on her off days? What’d she do yesterday?”

            “She and I spent most of the day together just relaxing.  Organized the tent up a bit more. Went for a walk,” she shrugged.

            Newt let loose a small sigh.  “Well, I’m glad things are going well and you’ve gotten past the weird gap at least.”

            Sonya offered a small smile and looked up at him.  “What about you?”  
  
            “Yeah,” he shrugged. “Me and Harriet are fine.”  
  
            She leveled a stare at him as he laughed.  “Have you talked to Thomas?”

            “No,” he said.  “And I’m not going to.  At least not any time soon.  There’s too much go-”

            A sudden groan interrupted Newt’s sentence, and Sonya pushed off the counter and turned immediately toward Colin, who was shifting in the cot.  She glanced once at Newt and back down at him.  “Colin?” she asked, slowly walking over.

            Newt’s hand wrapped gently around her wrist and kept her from walking any closer.

            “Colin?” she asked again.

            “Amber?”

            “Who?” Newt whispered to her.

            “Amber?” Colin asked again, eyes still shut.

            Sonya tapped Newt’s hand where it stayed latched at her wrist.  He gave her a warning look and shook his head, but she nodded and unhooked his hand, ignored the second warning in his eyes.  This wasn’t the first time she’d done this.

            “Colin,” she began as she stepped forward just a bit.  “Can you open your eyes? You’re safe now.”  
  
            Colin turned his head back and forth a bit, which Sonya noted was a good thing.  After that much time being still, he shouldn’t be able to move much at all.  After another moment, his eyes peeled open and he blinked a few times at the top of the tent. Sonya stopped walking and kept an eye on him, heart pounding inside of her chest – waiting to see what the outcome would be.  His eyes shifted slowly and then quickly.  And then too quickly.

            She swore as she backtracked and pushed Newt back with her.

            “What’s going on?” he asked as they stumbled back into a storage bin.

            “He’s waking up, but he has no idea where he is.  The last thing he remembers is turning.” She chanced a quick glance at Newt and registered the way his mouth parted and his eyes moved slowly back to Colin.

            “Hello?” Colin croaked out.  “Hello? HELLO?”

            His hands sprang up from the straps belting him to the cot and, though she expected it, Sonya still flinched back. 

            “HELLO?”

            “Colin!” she called out.   “Colin, you’re okay!” she ran over, just escaping Newt’s outstretched hand.  She stopped at the edge of the cot just in Colin’s vision.  “Colin you’re okay! You’re safe!”

            “Where’s Amber?”  
  
            “Colin, look at me!” she called back.  She turned to Newt.  “Cold water!”

            “What?”  
  
            “Cold water!” she gestured to the sanitation bin.

            Newt seemed to blink himself back to the moment and then turned and grabbed the basin and brought it to Sonya.

            She ripped it from his arms and dumped it right over Colin.

 

            The chaotic air seemed to settle around them as Sonya caught her breath and watched Colin register his surroundings.  After a few minutes of silence, she tried again.  “Colin?  Can you hear me?”

            His eyes shifted and found her.  They scanned her face and then the fear gripped his eyes.  “Where am I?”

            “It’s okay, Colin.  You’re safe.  We’re not WCKD.”

            His eyes flicked between her and Newt.

            “WCKD’s been defeated.  We’re in a place called the Safe Haven.”

            His eyes continued to flick and she could tell he didn’t believe her.  That was fine, she didn’t expect him to bite right away.  She turned to Newt.  “Can you find Landon?”

            Newt’s eyes were set on Colin as he nodded slowly.  He turned away without a word.

            “Landon’s here?” Colin asked.

            Sonya nodded down to him.  “He’s here and he’s fine.”

            “Amber?”

            Sonya paused, trying to remember if she’d met an Amber in the Safe Haven.  “Landon will fill you in on everything,” she nodded.

            “Who are you?” he asked.  “You’re not… you’re not with them?”

            “No,” she shook her head.  “I’m not with WCKD.  I was captured by them but rescued a few months ago.  We’re all safe here.”

            “And…and me?” he asked.  “Am I…?”

            She nodded, feeling something burn behind her eyes.  “You’re cured, Colin.”

            He shook his head.  “How?”

            “It’s a long story,” she said.  “Landon will fill you in on it, but why don’t we try to get you sitting up for now and drinking some water?”

            He nodded slowly.  “Okay.”  
  
            She unfastened the buckles against his wrists and helped him sit straighter, propping pillows behind him to lean on.

            “I… I can’t feel my legs.”

            She nodded.  “That’s expected.  You’ve been out for a few weeks now.  You won’t be able to walk properly for a bit,” she turned as Newt walked in, followed by Landon. She smiled back down at him. “But trust me, you will.”

            “Colin?” Landon asked as he stepped up to the cot.

            “Hey,” he exhaled.

            Sonya turned away for a moment, letting them reunite in privacy, and busied herself with pouring some water.  After the greetings were done, she turned back and gave the water to Landon.  “Make sure he drinks this.  Newt and I are going to take care of the laundry.  If you need anything, let us know right away.”  
  
            Landon nodded and tuned back to Colin, helping him with the water.

            Sonya turned to Newt and nodded toward the tent exit.

            His eyes were set on the floor next to the cot, lost somewhere Sonya couldn’t see.

 

            Sonya filled the basin of sheets with water and watched the suds from the soap crop up. The silence was heavy in the air as Newt sat down on one of the nearby rocks, eyes still set far away.  Sonya tried to think of some way to break it, some way to fill the gap, but everything seemed to fall flat in her mind.  Instead, she watched the suds.

            “Was I that confused?” Newt asked when the water had been turned off and the sheets were soaking.

            Sonya’s hands twitched as she paused in swirling the sheets around in the water.  “You don’t remember?” she asked the basin.  When she was only answered by silence, she looked over her shoulder to see Newt quietly shaking his head. She pulled her hand from the water and shook it dry before turning around.  She leaned back on the basin.  “I didn’t think about what it might feel like for you to see him wake up.”

            Newt shrugged and tossed one of the rocks he’d scooped from the sand. 

            Sonya cleared her throat and dropped her gaze as she spoke.  “You told us to get away from you.”  She chanced another glance up to see Newt’s hands stutter in their movements.  “You asked for Thomas, too.”

            He looked up at her and she wondered if he were gauging if she was attempting to tease him or not. 

            She decided she’d let him believe whichever was easier. “What do you remember?”

            Newt took a deep breath and tossed another rock as he exhaled.  “I remember Thomas and Minho being there. You were there.  But it was like everyone was in the middle of a conversation that I’d missed and just woke up in the middle of.  I’d assumed that’s what had happened.”  He dropped his gaze to the rocks in his hands.  “Until now.”

            Sonya shifted her stance a bit more.  “Do you remember what the conversation was?”

            Newt nodded and swallowed.  “Thomas was talking.  He was talking about how the Safe Haven was running and there was no rush for me to join the jobs but when I was ready he’d take me around and show me the options.”  He laughed then and let the rest of the stones fall from his hand.  “I remember thinking it was funny because when he came up in the box, back in the Glade, I was the one who brought him around to all of our jobs.”

            Sonya let a small smile curl up.  “You know, that conversation wasn’t that long after you’d woken up.”

            “No?” he asked, looking up at her.

            She shook her head. “It was only a few minutes later.  I mean, we asked how you were doing and if you could hear us and all and then you asked where you were.  That’s when Thomas started talking to you about the Haven.”

            “Really?”

            She nodded.

            Newt’s face brightened then and the corners of his mouth twitched up.  “Well, that’s not so bad, is it?”

            “No,” she laughed.  “It’s not.”  
  
            Newt’s smile stayed for a few more breaths until it started to fade.  “I was afraid there was so much more I’d missed.”

            “There wasn’t.”

            “There was,” he corrected her with a dark look.  “Maybe not here, maybe not when I woke up, but there was.” His eyes glazed over with some memory.  “Those hours that I was fading.  There are bits and pieces and then,” he slowly shook his head.  “And then it all goes dark.”

            “You blacked out?”

            “In a way.”

            Sonya dropped her gaze.  She turned to the basin to look at the sheets, decided they could wait a bit more in the solution and walked over to the rock Newt was sitting on.  She nudged him a bit with her knee and waited for him to slide over where he could.  She sat in the small space next to him, suddenly aware of how much taller he was. “You know you can talk to me about it, right?” She looked up at him.  
  
            “I know,” he nodded. 

            “Whenever you’re ready.”

            He shifted his gaze to meet hers and smiled.  Though it was small, it still let her know he was okay.  He slung an arm loosely around her shoulders and leaned his head down on hers.  “You know, we could have used someone like you in the Glade.”

            “What does that mean?” she asked.

            “Someone who cares about others.  That’s not to say we were all selfish, obviously.  Just that you have a big part of you that reaches out to others, tries to understand them.  Helps them.”

            “That’s funny,” she laughed.

            He lifted his head and looked down at her, brows furrowed. “Why?”

            “Because Thomas told me that was who _you_ were.”


	9. Day 57

_Day 57 –_

_We finished our brew last night!!!! The last three days have been so busy.  Gally is a nuisance, but we’ve all come to know that by now.  Him and Aaron becoming friends is easily the worst thing that’s happened to this place.  They swear they’re not, but it’s gotten to the point that you rarely see one without the other these days.  Unless it’s when Gally goes off in the woods after breakfast, but I’m guessing that just has to do with his secret gift._

_Speaking of which – still no update on what to get Harriet. The most I’ve figured out is that she spends some of her off time with Brenda talking about books.  They’ve begun a sort of book club between the two of them.  Maybe I can give her a book?  There’s no way I’d be able to write an entire book in two days, so that’s definitely out of the question.  Maybe if I had a month or so, and even then, that’s without all this Project nonsense from Vince._

_The good news is that with it being so close to the Bonfire, Vince has given everyone off work.  We’re all meant to tend to the jobs that need tending to – the gardeners have to make sure the plants are watered and the cooks need to make sure someone is available to get the food ready for serving, but for the most part it’s very laid-back, just like our usual off days.  So, naturally I’ve spent most of the day in my tent.  Harriet spent most of this morning with me being lazy.  She’s currently sprawled across the bottom of my legs reading her book.  She’s absolutely stunning, even in these lazy mornings.  I don’t understand it, sometimes.  There are dozens of girls here and still, no one comes close to comparable with her._

_I’m glad she made it to the Safe Haven._

_And I’m glad I get to be here with her._

_I think it’d be nice to be able to spend the rest of our days together, no matter where we are._

 

 

“Sonnie!”

            Sonya jumped up at the sudden movement at the tent flap and looked to see Newt barge in, eyes scanning her and Harriet.

            “Shit, sorry. I… I didn’t mean…”

            Sonya looked down and met Harriet’s confused gaze as she rolled over to look back at him.

            “Newt?” Harriet asked. “Is everything alright?”  
  
            “Yeah, yeah,” Newt nodded and Sonya could see heat starting to burn his cheeks.  “I really didn’t mean to come in here screaming. It’s not important.  I’m just… I just… Can I borrow you?” he shifted his gaze to Sonya.

            Sonya glanced down at Harriet with a raised brow.

            Harriet snorted and lifted herself from Sonya’s legs.

            “I’ll be back in a bit,” Sonya laughed into their kiss.

            “No rush,” Harriet said, her nose grazing Sonya’s just lightly.  “I’ve gotta meet Brenda in a few anyway.”

            Sonya pulled herself off the bed and tucked her journal into the crate on the side and followed Newt out of the tent.  “What’s going on?”

            “Sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I didn’t mean to like…” he waved his hand vaguely toward the tent.

            “Newt,” Sonya said, leveling a stare at him.

            “Right,” he dropped his hand and shook his head. “Anyway, come with me.”

            “Where are we going?”  
  
            “The woods!”

            “The…?” Sonya flailed her arms and turned back to the tent.

            “Sonya! You’re gonna miss it.”

            “I need shoes for the woods, Newt. A little more warning would have been nice.”  
  
            “Okay well, hurry.”

            Sonya rolled her eyes and ducked back into the tent.

            “Is everything okay out there?” Harriet asked through a nervous smile. 

            “I have no idea,” Sonya shook her head pulling her boots on.  “He’s ridiculous and probably found some twig that looks like Thomas or something.”  
  
            Harriet snorted.  “Well, have fun.” She pushed herself from the bed.  “I’m off to wash up.”

            Sonya let a smile curl up on her face as Harriet pressed a small kiss to her cheek on her way out.

 

 

            “Could you slow down?” Sonya groaned.

            “Absolutely not,” Newt whispered. “And keep your voice down.”

            Sonya rolled her eyes – yet again – and jogged a bit up the hill to catch up with Newt. 

            “Just a little further,” he whispered. After a few more paces, his eyes snagged on a tree with a broken branch and he stopped walking. He held up a hand for Sonya to stop as well and then turned to her and signaled to stay quiet.

            She made a dramatic gesture of sealing her lips, but her curiosity had fully piqued by now and she couldn’t help wondering what he’d lead her out here for.  It was just after breakfast, so everyone was back at the beach finishing up or enjoying their day off.

            Newt tugged her arm to the side just behind the tree and reached forward and slowly shifted the broken branch – slow enough that it barely made a sound – and cleared her view across the way.

            Her eyes shifted, but she didn’t see any movement or anything out of the ordinary.  She opened her mouth about to ask when his fingers gently pressed against her cheek and turned her focus a bit to the left.  Sonya squinted her eyes a bit as Newt put a hand on her shoulder and forced them both to crouch.  There, in the distance only viewable through more low hanging branches, past bushes and trees, was the slightest hint of movement.

            Though she couldn’t hear them, she could see Brenda leaning against a tree, one leg propped up and arms folded as she spoke.  There was a slight curve to her mouth and a mischievous gleam in her eye that made Sonya tilt her head.  She followed her gaze and a few feet across the small clearing, stood Gally with the same look in his eyes – receiving the brunt of whatever quip Brenda was sending his way.

            Sonya’s brows furrowed and she turned to look at Newt.

            He slowly put the branch back in place and tugged her further back behind the tree.  When he spoke, he was barely loud enough for Sonya to hear.  “I first noticed them on our way back through the woods when we came out here last week.  I thought it was a bit odd, because I know Gally doesn’t run anymore.  But then I started seeing him disappear into the woods every day after breakfast.”

            Sonya tilted her head.      

            “While Brenda’s on her run,” he added with raised brows.

            “Are you saying…?”

            Newt shrugged and stepped forward, peering toward them again as he whispered. “I don’t know. It’s very possible they’re just helping each other with gifts. Maybe he has someone she’s close to or whatever, but they never talk when they’re on the shore around people. It’s fishy, no?”

            Sonya worked it over in her head.  It was odd, but it was also likely it had to do with the Secret Gifts.  Maybe Brenda had Aaron?  Maybe Gally had Thomas?  She shook her head at Newt even though he wasn’t looking.  “I think you’re being crazy.  Gally hates everyone – except maybe Aaron. And we come into the woods all the time and we’re just friends.”

            Newt made a sort of disgusted sound.

            “Thanks,” Sonya snorted. “But I mean it – they’re probably helping each other out.”

            “Yeah?” Newt turned back to her with a raised brow.  He tilted his head for her to step forward.  “Helping her with what, exactly?”

            Sonya ducked out from the tree and looked past the branch Newt held out.  Gally stood pressed against the tree now, legs bent just slightly as if he was pushed and had to gain his balance, and Brenda’s fists were curled into the material of his jacket as she stood on tip toes, mouth moving against his rhythmically.

            Newt turned to her.  “Still think this is about the gift exchange?”

            Sonya snorted.  “I’m thinking she’s gonna be a bit late to book club.”

 

            “Wait,” Harriet shook her head.  Though her brows were furrowed, a laugh still bubbled out of her.  “They were in the woods together?”

            “Yes,” Sonya confirmed for the third time.

            “Okay,” Harriet nodded now.  “And they were definitely making out.”  
  
            “Harri, I can _not_ make this up.”

            “Who the hell would have guessed?” she laughed.  “And Newt showed you?”

            “Yeah.”

            A fond sort of smile took over Harriet then as she tucked a strand of hair behind Sonya’s ear.  “You two have gotten really close over the last few weeks, hm?”

            Sonya shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess.  He’s nice.  Nicer than the others, by far.”

            “That I can definitely agree with,” she laughed.  “During those six months, he was the only one who could pull us all together.”

            Sonya tried to smile, but she couldn’t help the darkness that gripped her chest at the memory of the six months.

            “How are things going with him and Thomas?” Harriet asked.

            Sonya lifted a brow.  “Him and Thomas?”  
  
            Harriet shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I always thought there might have been something between them.”

            “Oh,” Sonya nodded, trying to feign obliviousness.  “Yeah, I’m uh… I’m not sure.”

            Harriet eyed her, but didn’t push the topic.  Sonya was grateful.  She loved Harriet, of course.  They shared everything, but she’d grown to have a certain loyalty for Newt as well.  She didn’t want to betray that trust.

            “Anyway,” Harriet sighed, “back to this Brenda and Gally business.” She tossed her book to the side.  “Guess book club is canceled.”

            “Well, maybe we could have it,” Sonya shrugged as she reached over and picked up the book.  The cover was faded, a bit torn and bent at the corners.  She flipped through the yellowed pages, some torn, some faded completely.  “How do you two even read this thing?”

            “It’s mostly context,” Harriet tilted her head.  “I mean, it’s rare to find any book that’s actually intact.  This one is actually missing a bunch of pages.  It jumps from seventeen to thirty-two and, let me tell you, it was a really confusing jump that I will not get into.”

            Sonya laughed and looked up at Harriet.  Despite the tone, Harriet’s eyes seemed brighter and she looked excited for the first time in a while.  “Tell me about it.”

            “Hm?”

            “The book,” Sonya lifted it.  “Tell me about the book.”

            “What?” Harriet furrowed her brows over her smile.  “No, no you don’t care about that.”

            “I do,” Sonya nodded.  “Come on, you’re always reading it.  You clearly enjoy it,” she flipped through some of the pages again.  “So, tell me about it.”

            Harriet eyed her for a second.  “Really?”

            “Yeah.”

            Harriet’s smile grew as her features softened.  Finally, she nodded.  “Okay.”  
  
            Sonya settled comfortably, cross-legged on the bed across from Harriet and listened attentively as Harriet told her the story of Pride & Prejudice.  She watched her smile grow, her hands gesture wildly at certain spots.  She curled up in her laughter and in the crinkles in the sides of her eyes.  She let her voice melt into her and her happiness prod through her ribs and lungs and settled deep within Sonya’s heart.  And most of all, Sonya felt herself fall in love.

 


	10. Day 58

_Day 58 –_

 

_I don’t have too much time.  Bonfire is tomorrow and I really need to run to get together a gift for Harriet.  I finally have an idea, but it’s going to take time to put it together and I don’t want to write it in case she reads this. (Not that I don’t trust you, Harri, but can’t be too careful. Although I guess by now you’d probably know I have you then, which ruins the surprise. But all of this is moot because I KNOW you’re not reading this… probably…)_

_Anyway, I really need to get going. The morning is meant for finalizing any bits of our projects and then I’ve gotta check on Colin and then run to work on this._

 

 

            Sonya shut her book and tucked it hastily into the crate next to the bed. She heard a small groan from beneath the covers.

            “Why are you awake? Sun’s barely up and we’re all off.”  
  
            Sonya laughed and leaned over the bed.  She pulled the blanket back a bit to reveal Harriet’s shut eyes before she tucked herself deeper beneath the covers.  “I have to finish my gift,” Sonya explained. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Harriet’s head, which earned her a hand wrapped lightly around her wrist.

            “Stay,” Harriet murmured softly.  “It’s warm under the covers.”

            “It’s warm with clothes on, too,” Sonya teased.

            “Doubtful.”

            Sonya kissed her once more and gently unclasped Harriet’s hand from her wrist.  “I’ll see you in a bit.”

 

            The air was definitely cooler outside of the tent and she contemplated for a moment diving back beneath the covers with Harriet, but she chased the thought from her head.  If she didn’t go now, the plan was ruined.

 

            She found Minho stretching his legs outside the edge of the forest.  She blinked once, confused, as her gaze landed on Jasmine next to him, stretching her arms above her head.  She considered leaving them and just asking Thomas or Emma for help, but knew Minho was the best bet.  Minho was quiet, kept to himself. He wouldn’t ask questions, either.

            She called out to him as she jogged closer.

            He turned and looked over his shoulder at her with a raised brow.  He held a finger up to Jasmine and walked over to Sonya.  “You’re up early.”

            “I need a favor.”

            Minho looked around them as if confused as to why she was asking him.

            “It won’t take you away from your run.”  
  
            “Okay,” he said warily.  “I’m listening.”

 

            Breakfast was scarfed down quickly.  She worked out her schedule well enough that if she made it to Colin while everyone was eating, no one would end up wandering in.  And then she could get into the kitchens tent during the clean-up.

            She tossed her tray in the bin with barely a wave to the group and made her way to the Med Tent.  She peered in and approaching Colin in the hammock.  “Hey,” she said gently.  “How’re you feeling?”

            “Been worse.”

            Sonya tilted her head.  “Suppose that’s true.”

            “I… Can I… Will I be able to make the bonfire tomorrow?” he asked quietly.

            “Landon told you about it?” she smiled.  
  
            He nodded.

            “Of course, Colin,” she rested a hand on his shoulder.  “We’re gonna get you out there no matter what.  For now, let’s get you sitting up.  I’ll have Landon bring you some breakfast in a bit.  Just wanna check how you’re doing first.”

            She went through the motions of checking his pulse to make sure his heart rate wasn’t the pounding chaos it had been in the beginning.  Then she made sure his temperature wasn’t anything extreme and checked how clammy he was.

            “We’ll get you washed up tomorrow,” she explained to him once she decided he was doing well.  “For now, rest today so you can make it. But things are looking good.”

            He sighed in relief.  “I can’t thank you enough.  All of you.”

            Sonya smiled down at him. “You’re one of the Haveners now.  We look after each other.”

            Colin swallowed. “I don’t… I don’t think they’ll all take too kindly to me as you have.”

            Sonya tilted her head.

            “I just mean… since I’m a Crank, y’know?”

            Sonya furrowed her brows.  “You’re not a Crank, Colin.”

            “Might as well be.”

            Something sank in Sonya as she recalled the same conversation she’d had with Newt all those weeks ago.  She remembered the anger in his features, the hate.  It wasn’t toward her, it wasn’t toward others – it was for himself.  It was the same look Colin wore now.

            “Listen to me,” she began, deciding she’d give Colin the words she didn’t give Newt at the time he needed them.  “You are not a Crank.  You are a human being.  I don’t care if you were infected – and neither does anyone else out there.  None of that was your fault, do you hear me? Anything you did – anything you tried to do – wasn’t your fault.  It was the disease that took over.  But it’s gone now and you’re back.  _Colin_.”  She emphasized his name as she stared down at him.  “You are Colin, now.  And you’re cured.  The ghost of anything you did is as gone as the Flare, okay?  You’re never going to hurt again – not like that.  You’re one of us and your past? Your past doesn’t matter.  All that matters is the person you are from this moment out – who you truly are inside.”

            Colin nodded and then his eyes flicked to the side.

            Sonya turned and found Newt standing in the doorway, somehow smaller than she’d ever seen him.

            She stood up and looked between them.  “It’s no longer your kind and our kind.  Immune and non-immune.  Newt, you’ve seen how everyone’s come together out there.  Tell me you know that.”

            He swallowed and nodded, just slightly.  “I know.”

            “Good.”

            “Can I… can you give us a minute?” Newt looked up at her.

            Sonya caught the pain in his eyes, but behind it there was comfort.  “Of course,” she nodded.

Sonya took the time away from the Med Tent to jog over to the kitchens.  She found Alyx lifting the basing of dirty trays and took the opportunity.  She grabbed one side of it and lifted.

            “Can I help you with something?” she asked, eyeing Sonya over the basin.

            “Well, after I help you, maybe,” Sonya smiled.

            Alyx lowered a brow but accepted the help and lead Sonya into the tent.

            “Hey!” Frypan called over.  “No non-cooks in the Food Tent. They start poking around and hurt themselves.”

            “I remember,” Sonya groaned under the weight of the basin.  “I was the one who had to patch Landon up.”

            She heard Frypan snort as he turned back to the dishes he was washing.

            “Right, here’s good,” Alyx grunted.

            They lowered the basin next to Frypan and Sonya let out a deep breath.

            “Okay,” Alyx nodded at her. “What’s up?”

            “Uh, I was wondering if I could use your guys’ help with something.” She flicked her gaze between Alyx and Frypan. 

            They both exchanged a glance.  Frypan leaned on his elbows on the edge of the big washing tub, water and suds dripping from his hands.  “And what is it you need help with?”

            “Obviously, it’s the gift,” Alyx said, folding her arms across her chest. 

            “Yes, thank you Alyx,” Frypan laughed.  “I was looking for something more specific here.”

            She shot an arm out and punched him in the back.

            Sonya pressed her hands together. “I was hoping you could both help me make something that would be able to get one item to stick to another.”  
  
            “What?” Alyx asked. “Like glue?”  
  
            “Yeah, or anything remotely similar.”  
  
            “Don’t you have access to tape in the Med Tent?” she asked.

            “The medical tape is white.  I need something clear that you won’t be able to see.”

            Alyx lowered a brow.

            “You wanna use our kitchen to make glue?” Frypan asked.  “Just trying to clarify here.”  
  
            “Please?” Sonya asked.  “I’ll do anything.”

            Alyx looked over her shoulder at Frypan. 

            Sonya watched both of their gazes drop down to the basin of dirty trays between them.  She sighed.  “Where are the gloves?”

 

            Nearly two hours later, Sonya left the washing area.  She spent the better part of that time helping clean trays and wipe down the kitchen and gained a fond sort of respect for those who chose to work in the Food Tent.  She rung her hair out as she walked across the shore and watched everyone shuffling around and taking care of last minute preparations.  She smirked to herself as she noticed the lack of Brenda and Gally anywhere to be seen.  She figured that’d be the case and figured she’d find one of them later to help her.  That was fine though – her focus landed, instead, on Teresa.

            Admittedly, Sonya had never really spoken with Teresa.  The first time she’d met her, Teresa was with the Glade Boys in the Scorch and she’d betrayed the Right Arm’s location to WCKD, which resulted in Sonya and Aris and hundreds of others being caught.  So, Teresa had never been on her good list to begin with.  However, she always minded her business and kept to herself.  She seemed nice and Thomas never had a bad thing to say about her – despite her choices.  Above all, Sonya trusted Newt.  And Teresa had saved Newt’s life.

            “Teresa?” she asked, standing awkwardly to the side.

            Teresa looked up from the project in her lap, blocked from view by the wooden table.  She watched Sonya for a minute in silence before she spoke.  “Yes?”

            Sonya put a smile on her face, hoping to ease the tense air between them.  “Hey, I was wondering if you could help me with something?”

            Teresa’s face was blank as she continued to watch Sonya carefully as though Sonya would lash out on her any minute. “Okay,” she said slowly.

            “I just need you to,” Sonya tilted her head, “procure something from me.  From the Garden Tent.”

            Teresa’s eyes shifted around them as if to confirm Sonya was still talking to her and not someone else.

            “I know there are others I can ask, but I know that you’ll keep quiet about it and won’t ask questions.”

            Teresa eyed her for another moment before she nodded.  “Okay. What do you need?”  


            Sonya ran down the mental checklist in her head. She spoke to Minho, planned time to sneak into the Food Tent later that afternoon, and had Teresa on a mission for her already.  There were two people left that she needed to talk to.  She sighed at the next mark on the list.

            As she’d guessed, she found Aaron sitting next to Thomas as they put together the rules for a game they had been creating between the two of them for tomorrow’s party. 

            “You’re in our light,” he said without looking up from the papers sprawled between them on the table.

            “I need a favor from you.”

            “From me?” Aaron looked up at her and Thomas followed suit.  It was almost eerie.

            “Can I borrow you for a moment?”

            He glanced at Thomas.  “What, do you have Thomas for your gift?”

            She furrowed her brows and looked between them.

            “I don’t think you’re supposed to ask people outright, A,” Thomas laughed.

            “Who says it has to do with the gift anyway?” Sonya shrugged.

            Aaron raised a brow.  “What? Did you wanna spend a little one-on-one bonding time?”

            Sonya shifted her stance.  “You’re still a prick, even after all these weeks.  You know that right?”

            “I am who I am,” he grinned, but he pushed himself up from the table.  “Keep working on the Outs system,” he tapped the paper Thomas was looking at.  “I’m telling you there’s gotta be something with the rubber bands.”

            “I think you’re wrong, but okay,” Thomas sighed.

 

            “What’s up?” Aaron asked around the wooden pick in his mouth as they walked a bit further toward the tents. 

            “Okay, it’s about the Gift Exchange.”

            “Shocking,” he deadpanned.

            “Can you please cooperate?” she pleaded. “Landon is busy with Colin and I have no idea where Kayla and Emma are.”  
  
            Aaron smiled then and rolled the small pick to the other side of his mouth.  “Need help from the builders, huh?  A bit late notice, blondie.” He folded his arms and leaned back on a post.  “Don’t think I can put anything together that fast for you.”  
  
            “I don’t need you to.  I just need your help to show me how to use some of the tools.”

            He lowered a brow.

            “And I need access to one of the machines.  In private.  Also goggles.”

            He narrowed his eyes.  “I need more information.”

            Sonya sighed, but conceded.  If this was going to happen, she’d have to trust him not to say anything.

 

           

            The last bit of her project arrived jogging from the woods and directly to the Wash Rooms about twenty minutes later.  Sonya leaned against the outside of the constructed stalls and eyed the sun.  She still had time, but her heart was pounding.  If this didn’t work out like it did in her head, she was out of luck.  She didn’t have a backup plan and she was just starting to panic over it when the stall door swung open.

            “All yours,” Brenda nodded back toward it as she rubbed a towel through her hair.

            “Actually, I was looking for you.”

            Brenda raised a brow.  “Me?”

            “I need your help with something.”  
  
            “I have little to zero knowledge about anything medical related,” she said as she walked past, still towel-drying her hair.  “Better luck with Newt or probably anyone else.”  
  
            “It’s not medical related,” Sonya said following her.  “I need you to get me something from the Mech Hut.”

            Brenda paused and turned back to her.  “From the Mech hut?” she tossed the towel aside on a post.  She folded her arms and looked at Sonya.  “You know I could get in trouble for missing supplies, right?”

            Sonya knew very well that the mechanics hut was off-limits to everyone, which is why she’d preferred to ask Brenda over Gally.  Supplies was few and far between when they came across it. Losing any of it was a strict offense.  “I know this is a risk, but it would mean the world to me.”  
  
            “Yeah,” Brenda slowly nodded. “And it would mean the world to me to not be in the Slammer for a week.”  
  
            Sonya shifted and glanced around.  She hated herself for it, but she pulled the card she’d been holding.  “I won’t tell anyone about you and Gally.”

            Brenda blinked.  “Excuse me?”  
  
            Sonya folded her arms. “I saw the two of you in the woods.  I know he follows you out there every day when you’re _running._ ” She emphasized the last word and punctuated it with a pointed look.

            Brenda narrowed her eyes.  “Are you threatening me?”

            “Do I need to?”  Her heart pounded.  This wasn’t who she was – she didn’t threaten people, she didn’t blackmail and she didn’t lie.  But, over the last few weeks, she’d spent more time with Brenda.  She knew what she was about.

            “You’ve got some guts in you,” Brenda nodded at her.  “Alright, you get one item.”

            “From each of you?” Sonya smirked.

            Brenda leveled a stare at her, but her mouth curled up.  “I’ll talk to him.”

            Sonya’s smirk grew into a full smile now. Maybe this would work after all.

 

 

            It was nearly curfew by the time Sonya stumbled out of the Wash Rooms for the second time that day. When she got into her tent, it took everything in her not to collapse.

            “Where have you been all day?” Harriet laughed.  “I’ve been looking for you.”  
  
            “Sorry,” Sonya exhaled as she climbed on the bed and curled into Harriet’s lap.  “Helping Newt with his Secret Gift.”

            “Ah,” Harriet nodded.  “That’s nice of y-wait. You told each other who you have?”

            “He pried it out of me,” Sonya yawned.

            “I feel like Newt prying anything out of anyone is a lie.”

            Sonya mumbled something in return, but lost all focus on it.  She drifted to sleep to the clover and warmth of Harriet’s presence, and dreamt of a distant memory.


	11. Day 59

_Day 59 –_

_Good morning! I have to run quickly – today is the day of the Bonfire! Everyone is starting to set up.  I have to run to the Med Tent first and then check on Harriet’s gift to see how it ended up.  I’ve never been this nervous.  I have no other options if this doesn’t work.  Never mind the fact that I don’t even know if she’s going to like it.  Oh god. What if she hates it? Maybe this was stupid. Maybe I can scrounge something new up. Oh my god I have to go._

 

 

Sonya jogged to the Med Tent after a rushed breakfast and a kiss to Harriet’s cheek.  “Hey,” she exhaled.  “I’m here.”  
  
            Newt turned from the counter and looked across the tent at Aris and back to her.  “Well, this might be a first.”

            She ran a hand down her face and walked over to him.  “Sorry.  Okay, what are you up to?”

            Newt laughed and looked up at her.  “Would you relax? Your hair is all over the place.” He reached up to try to tuck stray strands back into the braid.

            She swatted his hand away and blew a strand out of her face.  “Come on, I have to get back to my gift.”

            “Oh yeah,” Newt nodded and turned back to the desk.  “Okay, so Jonah is helping Colin out in the Wash Rooms.  Aris is sterilizing,” he pointed over his shoulder. “I was gonna get started making sure we’re fully stocked on bandages and all.  Uh,” he shrugged.  “Want to check the med cabinet? Make sure the aloe and all is handy in case of burns? Bonfire and Gally’s brew,” he looked up at her.  “Trust me – I know how badly that can end.”

            Sonya bit her lip and nodded.  “Do you think she’s gonna like it?”

            “What?”

            “Harriet,” Sonya urged.

            “Yeah,” Newt nodded and turned back to the desk cubbies and started sifting through it and jotting numbers down on a sheet of paper.

            “I don’t know,” she bounced on her heels.  “I just… What if it’s too much?  What if it didn’t even come out right?” She looked up at Newt.  “What if it’s not even-?”

            “It’ll be fine.”  
  
            “Yeah, but what if-?”  
  
            “Sonya?” he asked as he turned to her.  “Everything’s gonna be fine.  Can we just…” he gestured to the Med Cabinet. “Can we just get this done with so we can all leave and get ready?”  
  
            Sonya furrowed her brow at him but didn’t say another word.  She turned to the Med Cabinet and started shifting through the supplies to make sure everything was in order.  She wondered if Newt was bothered because perhaps he hadn’t finished his gift.  She was about to ask him when she remembered Aris was crouched in the corner.  She turned back to the cabinet and went about her business.

           

            When they’d finally finished up at the Med Tent, Sonya sprinted across the beach to where Aaron was leaning over a table, mask on and sparks flying as he worked on something Sonya couldn’t see.  She stood patiently behind him waiting. 

            She waited some more.

            And then she waited some more.

            And then she gave in and walked around the table to stand in front of him so he’d see her and stop.  It finally took her waving her arms dramatically for him to stop the machine and push the mask up on his head.

            “What?” he asked flatly.

            ‘Could you at least pretend to be happy about today?”  
  
            “What?” he asked, feigning an excessive smile.

            “You’re an ass is what.”

            “Thank you.”  
  
            “Do you have my… the thing?” she asked, shifting her stance and glancing around.

            Aaron yawned at her.

            Sonya stared back at him in silence.

            Finally, he exhaled and tossed down the heavy tool.  “Let’s go,” he pulled off the mask and yanked his gloves off. “In and out – quickly.”

            She followed him into the Builder’s Hut and glanced around.  Various tools hung off the walls, shelves were built and placed against the back wall to house multiple other items Sonya didn’t even have names for.  Wooden tables were scattered about with blankets and sheets thrown over them to cover some mysterious item on each one – more gifts, she assumed.

            She followed him to the back of the hut and he crouched down to the bottom shelf.  She watched as he pulled out a crate of items and then reached further back on the shelf and pulled out a small wooden box.  He stood up and handed it to her.

            “You… you made a box for it?”  
  
            “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”  
  
            She furrowed her brow at the box and then looked up at him.  “You didn’t have to do that.”

            He blinked at her. “Do you not want it?” He quickly opened the box and pulled out the present.”

            “No, no!” she grabbed his hands and stopped him from tossing the box in the bin behind him.  “No, it’s perfect.  Thank you.”  
  
            “Listen,” he sighed, placing the gift back in the box with a gentler side of him than Sonya had ever seen.  “Don’t go around telling people I did this.  I don’t need everyone lining up asking me to make them things.”

            She bit down on her smile and took the box from him.  “So why _did_ you do it?”  
  
            Aaron shrugged.  “I don’t know, I mean… you’re nice.”

            Sonya raised a brow.

            “That day when Gally and I were fighting, you let me take all your leaves with no hesitation.  You stood up to me and it’s cuz of you I ever really became friends with Gally and I don’t know.  It’s nice to have a friend here other than Jasmine.”

            Sonya tilted her head. “You know, you have more friends than just Gally, right?”  
  
            Aaron rolled his eyes. “Listen, don’t make this a whole moment, okay?”

            Sonya laughed but conceded.  “Sure. Thanks,” she lifted the small box and turned to walk to the exit.

            “Sonya.”

            She turned back to him.

            He gestured to the box. “Good luck.”  
  
            She furrowed her brow at him.

            He took a deep breath and glanced around the hut to check that it was empty.  “I’m not a Mazer, remember?  I still have memories of my family.”

            She considered his words. “It worked out?” 

            It might have been the first time that Sonya had ever seen a genuine smile from him.

 

 

            Sonya had to admit: the Safe Haven had definitely transformed.  Even she was surprised when all of their work from the past few weeks had come together. In the little light remaining from the sun as it sank beneath the horizon, she took in the lights strung up around the trunks of the trees lining the woods, the wreaths her group had painstakingly put together hanging from tents and huts.  There were more lights strung gracefully around the edge of the Remembrance Stone and a smaller wreath placed on top for those who couldn’t be there to celebrate with them.  The smells of melted cocoa wafted around her as tin mugs were passed hand to hand and the potato-cranberry pie that Aris had stressed over was sliced and laid out on a long table in front of the Food Hut, side by side with loaves of sweet bread.  Sonya nearly collapsed at the sight of them and the memories that swarmed inside of her chest.

            “Frypan mastered it,” Harriet nudged her. “Just as I thought he would.”  
  
            “Sonya!” Gally waved her over where he stood leaning against a large basin next to the table.  “Come try it out!”

            Sonya laughed and shook her head.  “Newt told me too many stories to know better.”

            “Oh, come on.  Newt just can’t hold his weight in anything.”

            “I’ll pass,” she laughed as he shrugged and poured himself another.

            “Oh!” Harriet grabbed her hand and led her down toward the shore.  “Come look what my group put together!”

            The two of them jogged down to a tree that was stuck into the sand.  It stood tall and wide and small stones hung from its branches. 

            “It’s cute,” Sonya smiled, tugging at one of the stones.  She blinked and looked closer at it to see ‘ _Minho’_ carved into it. 

            “There’s one for everyone here,” Harriet explained looking up at the tree.  “C’mere.”

            Sonya let herself be tugged around the side of the tree as Harriet pointed out two stones side by side, each reading one of their names.  Sonya couldn’t help the smile that burst across her face.  “They’re so pretty.”

            Harriet pressed a kiss to the side of Sonya’s head.  “So are the wreaths.”

            “To be fair, Thomas put most of them together.”

            “Thomas?” Harriet asked pulling back from her in shock. “Really?”

            “Yeah, we were all pretty shocked at how good he was at that, actually.”  
  
            “Huh…” Harriet nodded.

            Static drifted toward them, slowly shifting into a melody.  “Come on,” Sonya nodded back up the beach and she and Harriet walked up to join the others.  The group began to grow as more and more Haveners started to join the night and Vince and Jorge worked on getting the bonfire started.

            It was a night filled with delicious food, music from the radio Brenda fixed, and shared stories and laughter. Frypan regaled tales of Glader bonfires that resulted in someone locking themselves in a slammer and finding someone else curled up with a cactus the morning after.  Emma matched this with a tale of their own Maze Party where they nearly knocked an entire flagpole down.  The fire continued to crackle in and out of their stories and conversations all the way through the sunset. 

            The talk began to die down as Vince stepped up to the front of the bonfire and looked across at all of them.  When the silence settled, he spoke.  “Welcome, everyone! To our first Haven Holiday!”  This was punctuated by a wave of cheers and claps around the large group.  “First, I want to thank all of you for all of the hard work you’ve put in the last few weeks.  I know it was a lot to do in a short amount of time, but you all came through for each other and I know I speak for the other Team Leads when I say it was wonderful to watch.  Second, I want to take a moment for us all to really appreciate what we did here as a group.  Look around you!  And I don’t only mean at the decorations and the food.  Really look around you.”

            Sonya turned around and glanced over the entire Haven group.  It took a moment, but she started to see what Vince saw: Gally, Brenda and Aaron all sat in a row passing a mason jar between them (that Sonya expected was possibly a bit stronger than the brew they’d made for the whole Haven…); Minho sat with Jasmine leaning back against his shoulder as her gaze shifted around the crowd; Thomas, Newt and Landon all sat around the small chair they’d set Colin on; Frypan sat with a curled-up Alyx and Teresa.  Everywhere Sonya turned, there was a group that had never been there before.  Even the people she and Harriet had chosen to sit with without even thinking about it: Emma and Sophia, Kayla and Dan.  People she’d hardly spoken to, but that Harriet was able to introduce her to, people that she was able to introduce Harriet to. 

            “This project has brought so many of us together in the way that we should be.  It reminded us that no matter what our past – where we have come from and who we have been – we all can have a future together.  It’s up to us to build and cultivate it, and over the past few weeks, my faith in all of you has swelled.  I know now that there’s no chance of failure here.”  He lifted his glass and the group followed suit with a round of cheers and more clapping.  Vince cleared his throat once the crowd settled again.  “Now, I think we’ve waited long enough.” He nodded over to Jorge.

            “Alright,” Jorge said, stepping up to the center.  “I think it’s time to get the night started, so when you are all ready, you can begin your gift exchanges.  We’ll have some music set up, our bonfire is ready, food is out to grab at your own leisure.  So, please,” he gestured to all of them with a sweep of his arm, “let the first Haven Holiday commence.”

            There was another round of cheers, but this time it was joined with everyone standing, clinking jars and tin mugs and a ripple of hugs before people started to rush off to their tents to procure their gifts. 

            Sonya’s weighed heavy in her pocket as she stood and wiped some of the sand from her pants.  She scanned the crowd and watched others jogging around each other to and from tents and then wrapped parcels were passed off to each other, smiles brightened and more and more hugs were exchanged around the Haven.  She took a deep breath and exhaled.  She knew it had to be now or never.

            She found Harriet ducking out of the tent with a small rectangular object wrapped in a torn sheet.  There were two options, as far as Sonya was concerned: buy herself more time to panic while Harriet gave her gift to her recipient, or just get it over with and at least have an out if Harriet didn’t like it.  “Harri!” she called as she jogged over to meet her on her way.

            “Hey! One sec?” Harriet asked. “I wanna give my gift to Gally.”

            Sonya eyed the gift.  “What’d you get him?”

            Harriet shrugged.  “It’s the book Brenda and I were reading.  Brenda gave me some help with it, which makes a lot more sense now.”

            Sonya joined in the laugh with her.  “Well, before you go, you have a second?”  
  
            “Sure,” Harriet furrowed her brows.  “Everything okay?”

            Sonya took a breath and then gestured to a nearby rock for them to sit.  “I was thinking a lot about our conversation the other day.”

            Harriet nodded, eyes scanning Sonya’s face.

            “I know I like to think a lot about the past and remember, but I also know that you’re more concerned with the future and how to start over.  I was trying to find a way for us to meet somewhere in the middle.”

            Harriet tilted her head as the concern lightened.  “Okay,” she nodded.

            “So,” Sonya exhaled and reached into her pocket.  She pulled out the small wooden box Aaron had crafted for her.  “I didn’t have time to actually wrap it up, but-”

            “You had me?” Harriet asked quietly.

            Sonya nodded, eyes still on the box in her hands.  She finally steeled herself and looked up.  “Harri, I want to meet you in the middle.  I want to meet in _our_ middle.  I want to have our past and our nows and, most of all, our future. And I want it to be together and I hope you do, too.”  
  
            “Of course,” Harriet said, eyes crinkling over her small smile.

            Sonya nodded and took another breath as she looked back down at the box.  “I thought about the book you were reading and the old traditions.  This whole holiday is an old tradition,” she laughed.  “I figured this kind of went hand-in-hand.” With shaking hands, she popped the lid off the box and handed it to Harriet.

            She watched Harriet’s eyes widen as she looked down to the small ring Sonya had constructed.  Sonya cleared her throat to continue.  “It’s sort of constructed of a bunch of things here in the Safe Haven – those little gems there,” she pointed to two small red bits that forms the jewels of the ring, “are seeds from the Gardens painted red with berries Minho grabbed from the woods.  The wire is from the Mech hut and I used the Food Hut to make it all kind of stick together. And finally, the Builders helped me actually weld it all into shape and set it.  I wanted it to be made of everything here since this is where our future will begin.”  She looked up at Harriet.  “If you want it to, of course.”

            Harriet looked up at her with shining eyes.  “Sonya…”

            “Don’t feel pressured,” Sonya shook her head quickly.  “There’s no need to answer anyti-”

            “Yes.”

            “What?” Sonya looked up at her.

            “Yes,” Harriet laughed, nodding.  “Of course it’s a yes.”  
  
            Sonya’s chest loosened with relief. “Really?”

            “What do you mean ‘really’?” Harriet laughed.  “Of course!”

            Sonya felt a smile break across her face a second before Harriet moved forward and met it with her own.  As they tangled arms and hands and mouths together, Sonya realized that perhaps the future could be something worth exploring after all.

            “This is beautiful,” Harriet said after they pulled apart.  She slid the ring onto one of her fingers and admired it.  “A bit big,” she murmured, glancing at Sonya.

            “Aaron said they’d be able to adjust it more,” Sonya nodded.  “I wasn’t sure of the sizing exactly.  Not really sure how it works and the numbers in the book were more complicated than necessary.”

            Harriet barked out a laugh and pressed another kiss to Sonya’s cheek.  “I love it.”

            Sonya smiled into another kiss from her.  “I love you.”

 

            After a few minutes, Harriet sprung up, remembering that she still needed to pass off her gift to Gally. 

            Sonya allowed a breath of relief as Harriet took off across the Haven toward him, ring glinting in the firelight.

            “How’d it go?”

            She turned to look behind her where Newt stood with hands in his pockets. 

            “Good,” Sonya nodded as she turned back to watch Harriet reach Gally and hand off the book.  She pushed herself to stand and wiped herself off.

            “Sonnie,” Newt started, “I’m sorry.”

            She glanced up at him.

            “I didn’t mean to chase you off this morning, I just… had a lot on my mind,” he exhaled.  “And it wasn’t fair to you.”

            “No,” she agreed quietly.  “It wasn’t.  But I forgive you.”

            “Thank you,” he nodded.  “Just… hearing you talk about things with you and Harriet when I haven’t even spoken to Thomas about anything of what I feel… it’s hard.  I just couldn’t listen to it.”

            “That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to keep doing it though,” she said as she threw a fist out to punch him lightly on the arm.  “You keep pushing people away whenever they try to talk to you.”

            “I know, I know,” he said.  “I’m going to work on that, though.”  
  
            Sonya eyed him but offered a smile.  “Good.  You know I’m here to help you, right?”

            “I know.”

            “Okay,” she sighed.  “Anyway, how’d Aris like his gift?”

            Newt shrugged. “No idea.”

            Sonya lowered a brow.  “What do you mean ‘no idea’?  Didn’t you exchange yet?”  She turned to look across the Haven and found Aris unwrapping something as Jasmine stood in front of him, waiting.  She turned back to Newt as he pulled something out of his jacket.  “What…?”

            “Here,” he nodded down to it as he handed it to her.

            She looked back up at him.  “For me?”

            “Yeah,” he laughed.

            “You said you had Aris,” she said.

            “Well, you didn’t actually expect me to say I had you, did you?” he laughed again.

            Sonya looked back down at the small rectangle as she took it from him.  It was light in her hands, wrapped in a brown type of paper and tied up with twine.  There was a decorative ‘S’ written in the top left corner. “It’s so pretty.”

            Newt shifted where he stood, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

            Sonya took a seat back on the rock and gestured for Newt to sit next to her.  He rubbed the back of his neck, but finally sat down.  She pulled the twine and watched it unravel, then pulled back the brown paper to reveal a small, worn black leather journal.  “What is this?”

            Newt shifted again next to her.  “I told you before that I draw.”

            She looked up at him.  “Is this…?”

            He gestured to the journal.

            Sonya delicately opened it to the first page which was blank except for a bit at the bottom right corner that simply said in small lettering: Newt.  “Can I…?” she asked him.

            “Go through it?” he asked.  “Of course.”

            She swallowed and began to flip through the pages.  There were scenes from a place she didn’t recognize: a field with animals, a small hut and two boys leaning against some trees talking.

            “Nick and Alby,” he nodded down to it.  “They were the first two people I remember meeting.”

            She flipped a few more pages to see more and more faces crop up in the field.  After a while, they started to become familiar: Minho, Gally, Frypan.  “These are amazing,” she breathed.

            “They’re okay.”

            She absently flung a hand to the side in a light punch, earning a small laugh from him.  She flipped through more of the pages, stopping on one as her chest constricted.  “The Right Arm,” she sighed.

            He nodded in the side of her vision.  “The day before… well…”

            She swallowed.  Before she was captured.  Before Minho was captured.   She flipped through a few more.  The drawings were filled with memories in the Scorch.  Firelight, Thomas, maps, trains…

            She tilted her head at another drawing and felt him shift next to her. “What is this?” she asked, looking at the map of crooked dark lines.  They looked like curved branches, but there was no tree trunk they came from.

            Newt didn’t answer, he simply reached over and flipped the page again.

            There was a small audible gasp that escaped her when she realized the lines and branches continued onto the next two pages and finally all joined together, flowing into the neck of a headless body with its arms splayed out, more branches drawn onto his arms. 

            Newt cleared his throat next to her.  “It’s supposed to be the-”

            “The Flare,” she finished for him.

            “Yes.”

            She ran her fingers lightly over the drawing, felt the way the pen dug into the pages when he drew it.  “You were upset.”

            “I was angry.”  
  
            She flipped a few more pages.  The drawings became cloudier.  Some of them were only half drawn, some of them were just a few stray lines before he gave up.  Eventually, she came across empty pages.  “Wow,” she breathed.  She made to close the journal but Newt’s hand reached out and stopped her.

            “There are more,” he said quietly.  “I just… I needed to separate them.”

            She considered his words for a moment before she nodded and then flipped a bit further through the blank pages.  The next drawing that appeared was the Remembrance Stone.  Her eyes scanned it before she spoke. “You wrote everyone’s names,” she said as she turned the page to see the back of the stone drawn there as well with more names.

            “Every single one,” he nodded.

            She continued flipping the pages, watching more and more of the Safe Haven get built.  “Is that…?” she faded off as she stared at a drawing of a girl with a clipboard leaning against a counter.

            “Yeah,” he laughed.  “It was one of the slow days in the beginning.  
  
            “Wow,” she smiled. “I never thought I was worth drawing.”

            “You’re worth remembering,” he corrected her.

            She smirked and nudged him with her shoulder as she flipped through more pages.  There was another folded loose page.  She looked at one side of it to see a Med Checklist.  On the other side, sketched out in pencil, was herself sitting cross-legged on the floor with another checklist and Colin resting in the corner.  She smiled down at it as she moved the folded paper and continued on, letting the pages flip forward.  She stopped suddenly, nearly dropping the book, and flipped quickly backward.

            “Everything okay?” Newt asked.

            “Yeah,” she nodded as she flipped back and forth through pages.  “I just saw one that…” her words trailed off as she opened to the drawing she caught while skimming.  “What is this?” she asked, barely audible.

            “Oh, that,” Newt shook his head. “I don’t know.  It was some dream I had, I think.  I have no idea what it was from.”

            Sonya eyed the drawing of two children sitting on the floor in front of a long couch, a book held in the little boy’s lap as the little girl peered on.  “This was a dream you had?” She eyed the small penguin drawn into the book in the boy’s hands.

            “Yeah,” Newt nodded.  “Why?”

            Sonya shook her head.  “Nothing.  It’s just… it’s nothing.”  She looked up and smiled at him. 

            His brow was furrowed but his face lightened a bit as he smiled back, brown eyes glinting in firelight, small tufts of blonde hair sticking out in bits here and there. 

            Sonya tucked a stray strand of her own hair back behind her ear out of habit before turning back to the drawing and flipping the page, shaking the odd déjà vu from her mind.  “These are really good,” she repeated, continuing through the drawings. She reached more blank pages and looked up at him.

            “It ends there,” he confirmed.

            She slowly closed the journal, brows furrowing.  “Why are you giving this to me?”

            He twisted his mouth, considering, before he answered.  “I don’t need it anymore,” he settled.  “It was good when I needed to remember.  When I wanted to know the difference between what was seen during the Flare and what was real.”

            Sonya nodded.  The same reason she journaled.

            Newt shook his head.  “I realized I didn’t want to keep looking through it anymore.  I thought a lot about what you said – about the gift you were giving Harriet.  Learning to live with your past while starting a future.”  He took a breath and looked across the Haven.  “I think you’re right.  I think I want to start living my future as well.”

            She followed his gaze and landed on Thomas sitting on a bench by the fire.  There was a sudden movement next to her and she looked up as Newt stood and started walking determinedly across the beach.  Sonya pushed herself up to stand, journal clutched in her hand. 

            Newt skirted a pair of Haveners exchanging and continued on his way to Thomas. 

            Thomas looked up and met Newt’s gaze and smiled.  His mouth seemed to form the word “hey,” but he was cut off when Newt reached forward and tugged Thomas up to stand and an instant later, he was kissing him.

            Sonya’s free hand jumped up to cover her mouth as a gasp escaped, but then dropped down to reveal her smile as she realized Thomas was kissing him back, right there in the middle of the bonfire. 

            Around them, others exchanged raised eyebrows and laughter and mouthed words that seemed an awful lot like “told you so”s and then there were arms around Sonya’s waist from behind and a chin resting on her shoulder.

            “Well, my love,” Harriet laughed.  “Looks like we’re not the only ones with a future on our minds.”

            Sonya turned in her arms and wrapped her own around Harriet’s neck as their foreheads met.

            “Where should we begin?” Harriet breathed.

            Sonya’s mouth curled up as her eyes fluttered closed.  It’d been quite some time since she’d had a beginning.


	12. Epilogue

_Day 104 –_

_Hey!  It’s been a while, sorry for not updating._

_Things have been going great around the Haven.  Harriet and I were able to move into one of the larger tents available so we moved all of our belongings over.  We’re next to Gally, which is both a blessing and a curse – a blessing when he stays with Brenda and a curse literally any other time._

_Newt and Thomas have been great – they’ve gotten their own tent now that Frypan and Minho have moved out with others as well._

_The Haven has been running smoothly.  For a while, people were switching around jobs, finding new interests and expanding.  I’m still in the Med Hut, but Jonah left to start working with the builders. In exchange, Emma joined us, which has been nice._

_Newt and I still keep our shifts together though.  It’s nice to have time to catch up with each other.  I guess, perhaps that’s why I haven’t written as much anymore.  It’s gotten easier to talk to Harriet about the past when I need to, and when she isn’t around – Newt is always there to listen, but it’s not even about that anymore.  I realize I no longer need to talk about it.  My focus has been set more on the future.  Opportunities and ideas Harriet and I have for a life together are all that fill our conversations now._

_It’s nice to feel like this – to have hope._

_I think that maybe one day, it could lead to something solid.  It’s already begun to, as far as I’m concerned._

_Harriet and I worked together to make me a ring to match hers.  Brenda made a joke about making a ceremony over it like in that book they read all those weeks ago, but I don’t think she was serious._

_Although it would explain the whispering Newt and her have been doing lately…_

_Well, anyway, I just wanted to write to say that I haven’t forgotten about updating.  I haven’t forgotten about much of anything anymore.  It’s no longer about the fear of forgetting, but the joy in wondering instead.  My focus is on what could be.  What’s done is done, and I realize that I can’t change that.  But what I can do, is take action for a future.  And that’s what I’m going to start doing._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the fic!! Finally, more Sonyarriet content.
> 
>  Support the gays. Say hi on Twitter! @WritingBia
> 
> In the future, Sonya and Harriet open a coffeeshop. It’s cute and soft.  
> http://ko-fi.com/comebacknow


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